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IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 


BY 

GOLDWIN   SMITH 

i1 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

LONDON :  MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LTD. 
1906 

All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1906, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  May,  1906. 


NorfoooU 

J.  8.  Gushing  &  Co.  -  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


PREFACE 

A  SECULAR  journal  in  England  received,  in 
the  course  of  three  months,  nine  thousand 
communications  from  people  seeking  for  light 
on  the  religious  question.  The  question,  then, 
is  evidently  practical. 

Never  before  has  there  been  such  a  crisis  in 
the  history  of  belief.  Never  before  has  man, 
enlightened  as  he  now  is  by  Science,  faced 
with  a  free  mind  the  problem  of  his  origin  and 
destiny. 

The  following  papers  were  penned  with  the 
same  desire  of  light  as  those  of  the  nine  thou- 
sand. They  appeared  in  different  forms,  chiefly 
as  letters,  in  the  New  York  Sun,  to  the  cour- 
tesy and  courage  of  whose  editor  the  best 
thanks  of  the  writer  are  due. 

It  seems  that  some  of  those  who  read  them 
have  wished  to  refer  to  them  again.  They  are 
printed  as  they  appeared,  without  attempt, 
which  would  have  been  vain,  to  give  the  series 
a  literary  form. 


Vi  PREFACE 

No  theory  is  here  propounded.  The  writer's 
aim  is  to  help,  if  he  can,  in  clearing  the  posi- 
tion, pointing  to  the  right  line  of  inquiry, 
and  guarding  against  false  lures.  To  this  end 
inquiry  and  thought  must  be  free.  Reason 
must  rule.  It  is,  as  Bishop  Butler  frankly 
says,  "the  only  faculty  we  have  wherewith  to 
judge  concerning  anything,  even  revelation 
itself."  Its  voice,  therefore,  is  that  of  our 
Maker.  Faith,  which  is  an  emotion,  cannot 
supersede  or  contradict  reason,  though  it  may 
soar  above  sense.  To  know  what  remains  to 
us  of  our  traditional  belief  we  must  frankly 
resign  that  which,  however  cherished,  the 
progress  of  science  and  learning  has  taken 
away.  But  destruction  will  not  be  found  to 
be  the  object  of  the  writer.  Nor,  it  is  to  be 
hoped,  will  there  be  found  in  him  any  appear- 
ance of  irreverence.  Nothing  can  be  farther 

from  his  heart. 

G.  S. 

TORONTO,  March  20,  1906. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

PREFACE  v 

LETTER 

I.    CHURCH-GOING  SCEPTICISM  i 

II.    THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL      ...  5 

III.  THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL      ...  8 

IV.  HAECKEL n 

.       V.     BETWEEN  TWO  FIRES 16 

VI.    A  NEW  THEORY  OF  IMMORTALITY    ...  19 

VII.    THE  BEE  VERSUS  MAN 27 

VIII.    THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL  37 

IX.    THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL      ...  42 

X.    EASTER       .        .        .        ...        .        .        .48 

XI.    EASTER 54 

XII.     Is  RELIGION  WORTHLESS?         ....  59 

XIII.  THE  CRIMES  OF  CHRISTENDOM  ....  62 

XIV.  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  FALL  WITH  DOGMA?          .  68 
XV.     SABATIER  ON  RELIGIONS  OF  AUTHORITY  .        .  73 

XVI.    THE  TENDENCIES  OF  RELIGIOUS  THOUGHT       .  83 

XVII.    THE  BIBLE:   ITS  CRITICS  AND  ITS  DEFENDERS  88 

XVIII.    Is  CHRISTIANITY  DEAD  OR  DYING?  ...  94 

vii 


155851 


viii  CONTENTS 

LETTER  PAGE 

XIX.  THE  Two  THEORIES  OF  LIFE         ...      98 

XX.    TELEPATHY 103 

XXI.  SPIRITUAL  VERSUS  SUPERNATURAL       .        .    107 

XXII.  A  PROBLEM  GREATER  THAN  TELEPATHY      .     no 

XXIII.  DR.  OSLER  ON  SCIENCE  AND  IMMORTALITY.     114 

XXIV.  DISPENSING  WITH  THE  SOUL  .        .        .        .118 
XXV.  THE  RELIGIOUS  SITUATION    .        .        .        .121 

XXVI.  Is  MATERIALISM  ADVANCING?        .        .        .126 

XXVII.    DOUBT  AND  ITS  FRUITS 131 

XXVIII.  THE  ANGLICAN  PETITION  FOR  FREEDOM      .     136 

XXIX.  THE  REMEDY  FOR  RELIGIOUS  DOUBT   .        .     141 

XXX.  THE  ORIGIN  OF  LIFE     .        ...        .        .     145 

XXXI.  RATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY        ,        .        ,        .148 

XXXII.  FREE  THOUGHT  AND  CHURCHMANSHIP  .        .     151 

XXXIII.  RELIGION  AND  MORALITY      .        .        .        •     155 

XXXIV.  THE  CONFERENCE  OF  THE  CHURCHES   .        -159 
XXXV.  WHAT  DO  WE  OWE  TO  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT?    164 

XXXVI.    JUSTICE  HEREAFTER 170 

XXXVII.  OUR  PRESENT  POSITION         .        .        .        .173 


IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 


IN    QUEST    OF    LIGHT 


CHURCH-GOING    SCEPTICISM 

ONE  clergyman,  it  seems,  denies  the  infallibility 
of  the  Bible,  and  treats  the  Church  as  an  asso- 
ciation for  general  improvement.  A  second  finds 
in  the  Bible  inaccuracy  and  worse.  A  third  pro- 
fesses to  believe  only  so  much  of  the  Bible  as  com- 
mends itself  to  his  judgment.  A  correspondent 
of  the  New  York  Sun  rebukes  one  of  them 
for  indiscretion  in  the  publication  of  truth.  At  the 
same  time  he  says  himself  that  the  truth  may  be 
rightly  told  in  private  conversation.  For  his  own 
part  he  regards  church-going  as  a  "moral  tonic, 
and  a  mental  bath,"  adding  that  "it  is  often  not 
comfortable  to  get  up  and  take  a  sponge  bath 
with  cold  water,  in  a  cold  room,  but  lacking  better 
facilities  you  must  do  it  if  you  would  be  de- 
cent among  your  friends  and  agreeable  to  your- 
self." The  eminent  clergyman  might  perhaps  be 


2  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

justified  in  retorting  on  his  critic  the  charge  of 
indiscreet  disclosure. 

How  many  church-goers  are  there  to  whom 
church-going  is  merely  a  moral  and  mental  sponge 
bath,  which  they  take  without  any  definite  belief 
in  the  doctrine,  that  they  may  be  decent  among 
their  friends,  and  agreeable  to  themselves?  How 
many  are  there  who,  dissembling  in  public,  tell 
the  truth  in  private  conversation?  If  the  num- 
ber is  large,  the  end  cannot  be  far  off,  and  this 
hollow  crust  of  outward  conformity  may  presently 
fall  in  with  a  crash  all  the  greater  for  delay. 

A  layman  has  only  to  sit  and  listen  to  the 
sermon.  But  a  clergyman  has  actively  to  pro- 
fess and  preach  the  doctrines.  If  he  has  ceased 
to  believe  them,  what  is  he  to  do?  I  never 
could  regard  without  entire  aversion  the  notion 
of  certain  illuminists  that  truth  was  the  privilege 
of  the  enlightened  few  while  tradition  was  the 
lot  of  the  crowd.  But  the  most  fatal  part  of 
the  arrangement  was  that  it  dedicated  the  clergy 
to  falsehood. 

Caution  and  tenderness  are  most  necessary  in 
dealing  with  religious  questions,  seeing  to  how 
great  an  extent  religion  has  formed  the  basis  of 


CHURCH-GOING  SCEPTICISM  3 

morality.  But  scepticism  has  now  spread  so  far, 
not  only  among  the  learned,  but  among  mechanics, 
that  the  policy  of  silence  or  dissimulation,  sup- 
posing it  were  sound,  is  no  longer  possible.  There 
is  nothing  for  it  now  but  perfectly  free  inquiry 
and  frank  acceptance  of  results.  Caution  and 
tenderness  will  always  be  in  order,  but  they  are 
not  incompatible  with  sincerity. 

What  is  the  consequence  of  silence  or  dissimu- 
lation on  the  part  of  earnest  and  reverent  in- 
quirers? It  is  the  abandonment  of  free  inquiry 
to  reckless  and  profane  hands,  with  such  results 
as  the  "Comic  Life  of  Christ,"  which  I  picked  up 
in  an  anti-clerical  bookstore  at  Paris.  I  heard 
Mr.  Ingersoll  lecture  on  Genesis.  He  was  very 
brilliant,  and  highly  effective,  but  he  destroyed 
reverence  as  well  as  superstition. 

"Do  not  pull  down,  but  build  up,"  is  the  cry. 
How  can  we  build  upon  a  site  incumbered  with 
false  tradition?  All  truth,  negative  as  well  as 
positive,  is  constructive;  no  falsehood  is.  I  see 
Henry  Newman  preferred  to  his  brother  Francis 
on  the  ground  that  Henry  was  organic,  and 
Francis  was  not.  What  did  Henry  organize? 
A  house  of  mediaeval  dreams,  in  which  he  could 


4  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

not  force  himself  to  believe  without  the  help  of 
such  an  apparatus  of  self-obscuration  as  the 
"Grammar  of  Assent."  The  " Grammar  of  As- 
sent" can  only  enhance  scepticism  by  its  inevitable 
fall.  Francis  Newman,  if  he  did  nothing  else, 
cleared  the  ground  for  construction,  and  he  helped 
to  lay  firmly  the  foundation  of  all  genuine  faith, 
thorough-going  confidence  in  Truth. 

The  three  eminent  clergymen,  it  is  to  be  feared, 
are  sliding  down  a  slippery  incline,  on  which  no 
permanent  foothold  is  to  be  found. 

JANUARY,  1896. 


II 

THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

THE  theological  discussion  carried  on  in  the 
Sun,  apparently  by  practical  men  anxious  to 
arrive  at  truth,  has  been  in  that  respect  more 
interesting  than  the  discussions  of  professional 
theologians.  One  of  the  subjects  was  the  validity 
of  the  evidence  for  a  future  life,  which  Johnson, 
orthodox  as  he  was,  could  not  help  feeling  to  be 
defective.  It  is  a  question  not  only  profoundly 
interesting,  but  intensely  practical,  as  well  in  its 
social  as  in  its  religious  bearing.  Without  a 
belief  in  consequences  of  conduct  beyond  the 
present  life,  moral  responsibility  in  the  full  sense 
of  the  term  can  hardly  exist.  Apart  from  indi- 
vidual interest  there  can  only  be  social  respon- 
sibility, which  would  hardly  control  the  unsocial 
and  selfish  natures,  whereof  there  are  not  a  few. 
The  cultivation  of  character,  independently  of 
present  social  requirements,  would  lose  its  object, 
since  the  best  of  characters  formed  by  lifelong 

5 


OF  THE 


6  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

effort  and  self-denial  would,  equally  with  that 
formed  by  lifelong  crime  or  sensuality,  come  to 
dust.  Interest  in  the  future  of  our  race  would 
lose  its  force;  reason  would  bid  each  man  aim 
simply  at  a  comfortable  passage  through  this  life. 

It  is  not  on  the  old  ground  that  the  doctrine 
of  a  future  life  can  be  sustained.  Theologians 
in  former  days  imagined  that  the  soul  was  an 
entity  apart  from  our  physical  frame,  inserted 
into  the  body  by  a  special  act  of  divine  power, 
pent  in  it  during  life,  and  set  free  from  it  by  death, 
though  still  remaining  its  filmy  counterpart. 
Bishop  Butler,  who  has  said  in  the  most  effective 
way  all  that  there  was  to  be  said  from  his  point 
of  view,  argues  that  the  soul,  or  as  he  calls  it  the 
"conscious  being,"  is  indivisible,  indiscerptible, 
and,  therefore,  presumably  uneffected  by  the  dis- 
solution of  the  body.  But  we  have  now  learned 
to  believe  that  there  is  nothing  in  us  which  is  not 
the  outcome  of  our  general  frame,  and  presumably 
liable,  with  our  general  frame,  to  dissolution  at 
death. 

Yet  there  is  a  voice  within  us  which  tells  us 
that  in  the  sum  of  things  it  will  be  well  with 
virtue,  and  that  the  effort  and  self-denial  expended 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL  J 

in  the  promotion  of  a  good  and  beautiful  character 
will  not  have  been  expended  in  vain.  No  man, 
I  suppose,  at  the  end  of  life,  whatever  his  course 
and  whatever  his  success  had  been,  would  not 
wish  that  his  life  had  been  righteous.  If  you  ask 
me  how  this  can  be  without  the  existence  of  the 
soul  as  an  entity  separate  from  the  body,  the  body 
being  liable  to  dissolution,  my  answer  is  that  I 
cannot  tell.  But  I  do  not  on  that  account  refuse 
to  listen  to  a  genuine  prompting  of  my  nature, 
if  this  be  one,  merely  because  it  is  not  confirmed 
by  the  evidence  of  sense.  Our  whole  being  is  a 
mystery.  Try  to  realize  in  thought  eternity  and 
infinity,  and  you  become  conscious  of  that  fact. 
Our  sense  probably  tells  us  little  more  of  the  uni- 
verse in  which  we  are  than  sense  tells  the  pur- 
blind mole,  which  no  doubt  thinks  it  sees  all  that 
there  is  to  be  seen.  We  are  happily  casting  off 
superstition,  but  there  may  be  still  some  scope 
for  faith.  Not  for  the  faith  which  would  reject 
or  supplant  reason,  but  for  the  faith  which  is 
the  evidence  of  things  unseen. 

SEPTEMBER,  1899. 


Ill 

THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

IN  using  such  a  phrase  as  "the  immortality 
of  the  soul"  we  put  the  question  on  a  wrong 
footing;  for  the  phrase  seems  to  imply  that  the 
soul  is  an  entity  separate  from  our  general  frame, 
and  this  can  no  longer  be  maintained. 

But  admitting  that  the  soul  is  not  a  separate 
entity,  does  it  follow  that  any  intimation  in  our 
nature  of  accountability  or  hope  extending  beyond 
our  present  life  must  be  an  illusion  and  ought  to 
be  disregarded?  I  do  not  wish  to  dogmatize  or 
even  to  affirm,  but  simply  to  submit  the  question. 

One  of  your  correspondents  holds  that  the 
question  is  settled  by  physical  science,  which  pro- 
nounces that  personal  decease  is  final.  All  physi- 
cal science  rests  upon  the  evidence  of  our  bodily 
senses,  however  systematized  by  our  reason. 
Have  we  ground  for  assuming  that  the  evidence 
of  our  bodily  senses  is  exhaustive? 

We  recognize  the  immense  revelations  of  science 

8 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL  9 

in  all  their  bearings,  and  especially  in  their  bear- 
ing on  the  origin  and  nature  of  man.  But  is 
there  not  some  danger  of  our  being  swept  away 
by  a  tidal  wave?  The  doctrine  of  evolution  has 
been  carried  to  the  length  of  imagining  an  evolu- 
tion of  Revelation. 

I  am  not  aware  that  science  has  yet  explained 
conscious  personality,  or  attempted  to  explain  it, 
otherwise  than  as  a  collection  of  memories.  On 
such  collection  there  must  surely  be  something 
to  reflect  and  operate. 

Huxley  at  one  time  confidently  maintained 
that  man  was  an  automaton.  But  I  believe  he 
afterward  receded  from  that  position. 

Tyndall,  with  whom  I  was  so  happy  as  to  be 
very  intimate,  always  avowed  himself  a  materialist. 
His  was  the  formula  that  matter  contained  the 
potentiality  of  all  life.  Yet  he  would  have  found 
it  difficult  to  account  on  merely  material  grounds 
for  some  of  his  own  sentiments  and  aspirations. 

If  all  ends  here,  considering  what  an  amount 
of  unmerited  and  uncompensated  misery  and 
suffering  there  has  been  and  still  is,  it  would  be 
difficult  to  confute  Schopenhauer,  who  tells  us 
that  this  is  the  worst,  not  of  all  conceivable,  but 


IO  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

of  all  possible,  worlds.  It  would  be  difficult  also 
to  show  that  the  individual  has  any  inducement  to 
exert  himself  for  the  general  and  future  good  of 
mankind,  or  that  there  is  anything  to  restrain 
him  from  doing  whatever  may  tend  to  his  own 
profit  or  enjoyment  without  regard  to  the  inter- 
ests of  humanity,  provided  he  can  keep  clear  of 
the  law.  Moral  responsibility  in  the  true  sense 
of  the  term,  as  I  said  before,  would  apparently 
cease.  Belief  in  an  all-powerful,  all-wise,  and 
benevolent  ruler  of  the  universe,  it  would  seem, 
could  no  longer  be  maintained. 

SEPTEMBER,  1899. 


IV 

HAECKEL 

IT  is  not  wonderful  that  the  masterly  account 
of  HaeckePs  philosophy  given  by  a  well-known 
writer  in  the  Sun  should  have  been  read  with 
interest  and  set  other  pens  at  work.  It  may 
confirm  belief  in  Haeckel's  creed,  perhaps  make 
some  converts  to  it.  Physical  science  has  been 
achieving  dazzling  victories  while  theology  and 
philosophy  are  for  the  time  at  a  discount.  Ultra- 
physicism  is  the  ruling  influence  of  the  hour. 

We  heartily  and  gratefully  accept  the  revela- 
tions of  physical  science,  casting  away  all  tradi- 
tions, cosmogonical,  anthropological,  or  of  any 
other  kind,  which  its  discoveries  have  disproved. 
But  before  we  resign  ourselves  to  its  exclusive 
dominion  we  may  take  time  at  least  to  look  round. 
One  or  two  grounds  for  hesitation  may  be  men- 
tioned. It  is  not  pretended  here  to  do  more. 
The  knowledge  of  the  universe,  or  of  the  particle 
of  it  which  we  inhabit,  is  that  received  through 


ii 


12  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

our  bodily  senses.  Is  it  certain  that  these  are  our 
only  trustworthy  sources  of  knowledge?  If  our 
moral  perceptions  are  natural,  ought  they  to  be 
put  out  of  court?  In  approaching  these  ques- 
tions we  cannot  help  being  filled  with  a  sense  of 
our  immense  ignorance  and  of  the  possibilities 
beyond  our  physical  ken.  This  universe,  as  we 
call  it,  which  physical  science  observes,  including 
the  remotest  telescopic  stars,  is  but  an  atom  in  in- 
finity. It  is  less  than  an  atom ;  for  an  atom  bears 
some  proportion  to  the  mass,  while  our  universe 
can  bear  no  proportion  to  infinity.  What  physi- 
cal science  calls  laws  and  bids  us  venerate  as 
supreme,  however  they  may  bound  and  control 
our  lives,  are  not  laws,  but  only  phenomenal 
uniformities,  unless  there  is  a  Lawgiver;  and  if 
there  is  a  Lawgiver,  who  can  say  that  his  action 
generally  or  in  relation  to  us  does  not  transcend 
his  physical  laws?  No  one  can  be  more  strictly 
scientific  than  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer ;  yet  he  recog- 
nizes the  Unknown  as  an  object  of  reverence, 
and  it  is  not  through  any  physical  organ  that  he 
can  perceive  the  existence  of  the  Unknown. 

The  freedom  of  the  human  will  in  any  degree  and 
however  qualified  by  the  influence  of  character 


HAECKEL  13 

and  circumstance,  would  seem  fatal  to  the  mate- 
rialist hypothesis  as  establishing  the  existence 
of  a  force  independent  of  physical  causation. 
It  is,  accordingly,  altogether  and  peremptorily 
denied.  The  powers  of  physical  causation  we 
can  inspect;  we  can  see  that  there  is  nothing 
between  the  impact  and  the  shock,  between  the 
composition  of  the  ingredients  and  the  compound. 
The  process  of  moral  causation  we  cannot  inspect. 
Between  the  ascertainable  determinants  and  the 
result  there  is  room  for  another  factor.  The 
only  appeal  is  to  our  consciousness;  and  our 
consciousness  tells  us  plainly  that  we  are  free. 
Responsibility  would  otherwise  be  an  illusion. 
If  we  are  really  automata,  how  came  we  to  fancy 
ourselves  free? 

Against  the  belief  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul 
it  is  said  that  eternity  transcends  thought,  and 
that  the  attempt  to  conceive  it  and  identify  our 
conscious  existence  with  it  only  produces  mental 
pain.  This  is  true;  but  it  is  a  merely  psycho- 
logical difficulty.  Let  us  discard  the  word  "im- 
mortality," which  connotes  eternity,  and  ask  only 
whether  we  are  sure  that  all  ends  here.  If  all 
does  end  here,  what  a  scene  is  human  history! 


14  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

What  a  scene  is  human  life!  What  can  the 
Power  be  under  whose  dominion  we  are?  Hux- 
ley wished,  if  nothing  better  was  to  come,  that 
the  globe  might  be  shattered  by  a  comet.  Can 
we  readily  believe  that  when  a  man  comes  to  die 
it  makes  no  difference  to  him  whether  his  life  has 
been  that  of  a  benefactor  of  his  kind  or  of  a  devil  ? 

Evolution  is  an  immense  discovery,  the  most 
momentous  probably  ever  made,  though  perhaps 
it  has  hardly  yet  settled  down  into  its  final  form 
and  limits.  Yet  may  it  not  weigh  on  us  too  much  ? 
That  we  have  been  evolved  from  anthropoid  apes 
is  the  conclusion  of  science,  and  we  accept  it, 
as  once  we  believed  that  man  had  been  made  out 
of  the  dust  of  the  earth,  it  might  be  radium. 
Still,  we  are  what  we  are,  not  apes,  but  men. 

Evolution  itself  seems  to  preclude  finality. 
Where  physical  selection  ends,  moral  selection 
may  begin.  Perfection  and  beauty  of  character, 
which,  we  seem  to  feel,  have  a  value  apart  from 
their  mere  social  usefulness,  may  also  have  ends 
unseen. 

These  remarks,  however,  are  merely^a  plea  for 
circumspection  and  against  giving  up  ourselves 
blindly  to  ultra-physicism  while  we  fly  from 


HAECKEL  I 5 

tradition  and  superstition.  Such  caution  is  spe- 
cially to  be  desired,  as  ultra-physicism  is  evidently 
beginning  to  affect  morality,  particularly  in  rela- 
tion to  the  duty  of  strong  nations  and  races 
towards  the  weak. 

APRIL,  1901. 


BETWEEN  TWO  FIRES 

I  FIND  myself  between  two  fires :  the  Darwinian 
and  the  Dominican.  But  I  fancy  that  my  posi- 
tion is  that  of  a  good  many  thoughtful  men  who 
have  renounced  superstition  but  are  not  ready 
to  go  the  whole  length  of  materialism  without 
further  light.  Even  on  social  grounds  the  pros- 
pect of  a  reign  of  commercialism  without  con- 
science is  enough  to  make  us  pause. 

I  have  not  asserted  that  the  phenomena  of 
moral  responsibility  are  incapable  of  physical 
explanation.  I  have  only  said  that  they  exist, 
and  that  it  is  incumbent  upon  the  materialist  to 
explain  them.  They  are  not  explained  by  mere 
reiteration,  however  vehement  and  positive,  of 
the  necessarian  hypothesis. 

We  are  ready  to  accept  heartily  and  gratefully, 
if  not  always  joyfully,  whatever  is  proved  by 
physical  science.  It  may  be  that  the  evidence 

16 


BETWEEN  TWO  FIRES  I/ 

of  our  consciousness  is  an  illusion.  Prove  this, 
and  we  will  accept  the  fact. 

Tyndall  maintained  that  in  matter  was  the 
potentiality  of  all  life.  Of  the  existence,  however, 
of  something  beyond  physical  life  his  own  charac- 
ter and  aspirations  always  seemed  to  me  to  be 
a  very  striking  indication. 

To  turn  to  my  critics  from  the  other  side.  I 
do  not  entertain,  and  therefore  I  cannot  have 
shown,  any  bad  feeling  toward  Roman  Catholics, 
among  whom  I  have  numbered  some  of  my  most 
valued  friends.  I  have  admitted  that  truth 
may  conceivably  be  found  with  those  whose  faith 
is  based  on  Church  authority  and  miracle.  But 
it  would  be  absurd  to  number  among  rational- 
ists any  who  believe  in  infallibility,  ecclesiastical 
miracles,  and  transubstantiation.  If  I  were  pressed 
on  the  subject  of  the  evidence  for  miracles,  I 
would  direct  the  attention  of  " Catholic  Student" 
to  the  liquefaction  of  the  blood  of  St.  Januarius, 
which  takes  place  annually  almost  under  the  eyes 
of  the  Pope. 

It  could  not  be  supposed  that  I  intended  to 
accuse  Cardinal  Newman  of  unveracity  or  deceit. 
His  conduct  as  a  convert  to  Catholicism  at  heart, 


1 8  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

carrying  on  his  movement  in  a  Protestant  church, 
was  perhaps  not  always  perfectly  ingenuous. 
But  all  that  I  meant  was  that  his  aim  as  a  specu- 
lative theologian  was  rather  religious  system  than 
truth.  He  used  his  powers  of  persuasion  to  bend 
your  reason  to  that  which  he  had  made  up  his 
mind  was  good  for  your  soul.  In  the  opening 
of  "Tracts  for  the  Times"  he  lets  you  see  that 
in  reviving  the  doctrines  of  apostolic  succession 
and  the  eucharistic  real  presence  he  was  seeking 
to  furnish  a  fresh  ground  for  clerical  authority 
when  the  support  of  the  State  was  being  with- 
drawn. Nobody  doubts  the  excellence  of  his 
character  or  the  purity  of  his  spiritual  aspirations 
any  more  than  his  genius  as  a  writer.  Sophis- 
tical reasoning  has  often  been  found  compatible 
with  honesty  of  purpose  and  sincerity  of  belief. 
It  was  so  in  the  case  of  Cardinal  Newman. 

APRIL,  1901. 


VI 

A  NEW  THEORY  OF  IMMORTALITY 

THE  last  attempt  to  make  evolution,  like  the 
fabled  spear  of  Achilles,  cure  the  wounds  which 
it  has  made  in  our  religious  faith  is  Dr.  S.  D. 
McConnell's  remarkable  essay  on  "The  Evolution 
of  Immortality." 

The  faith  in  which  most  men  now  over  middle 
age  grew  up,  and  which  churches  still  preach, 
is  that  man  is  distinguished  from  all  other  animals 
by  the  possession  of  a  soul  separate  from  his  body 
and  generally  antagonistic  to  the  body  and  its 
lusts;  that  at  death  the  souls  of  all  men  alike  are 
parted  from  their  bodies,  but  will  be  united  to 
them  at  the  Day  of  Judgment,  when  there  will 
be  a  final  division  of  the  wicked  from  the  good, 
the  good  going  to  everlasting  bliss,  the  wicked  to 
everlasting  woe.  To  this  rationalism  now  objects 
at  once  on  scientific  and  on  moral  grounds. 
On  scientific  grounds,  it  denies  that  man  is 
essentially  distinguished  from  the  higher  races 

19 


20  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

of  animals;  affirming  that  the  soul,  instead  of 
being  separate  from  the  body  and  introduced 
into  it  by  a  special  act  of  the  Creator,  is  the  out- 
come of  our  general  frame.  On  moral  grounds 
it  objects  to  the  utter  disproportion  of  infinite 
rewards  and  penalties  to  finite  merits  or  demerits, 
and  to  the  assumption  of  a  sharp  distinction  be- 
tween the  good  and  the  wicked  characters  passing 
by  infinite  gradations  into  each  other. 

The  result  is  a  growing  tendency  to  disregard 
anything  beyond  the  present  life,  or  at  least  to 
agree  with  Horace  Greeley  in  thinking  that  "  those 
who  discharge  promptly  and  faithfully  all  their 
duties  to  those  who  still  live  in  the  flesh,  can  have 
but  little  time  left  for  prying  into  the  life  beyond 
the  grave ;  and  that  it  is  better  to  deal  with  each 
in  its  proper  order."  On  the  other  hand,  though 
in  the  whirl  of  business  or  pleasure  we  may  be 
willing,  like  Macbeth,  to  "jump  the  world  to 
come,"  in  the  hour  of  reflection  we  cannot  help 
shrinking  from  annihilation.  To  the  Greek  poet 
it  was  a  sad  thought  that  while  the  lowliest  herb 
might  have  a  second  spring,  man,  the  mighty  and 
the  wise,  must  sleep  forever  in  his  cold,  dark 
grave.  The  strain  might  have  been  more  melan- 


A  NEW  THEORY  OF  IMMORTALITY  21 

choly  still  if  the  poet  had  thought  not  only  of  the 
extinction  of  the  individual,  but  of  the  severance 
of  affection.  The  sight  and  the  retrospect  of 
human  pain  and  misery,  if  there  is  to  be  no  com- 
pensation, are  heartrending.  They  are  a  heavy 
set-off  against  release  from  the  fear  of  eternal 
fire,  the  belief  in  which  has  probably  always  been 
faint,  since,  had  it  been  vivid,  society  would  have 
been  dissolved  with  terror.  Immortality,  in  the 
strict  sense  of  the  term,  as  it  connotes  eternity,  is, 
like  eternity  and  infinity,  inconceivable.  But  the 
social  effect  of  a  belief  in  a  future  state  has  most 
likely  been  greater  than  is  by  Dr.  McConnell,  or 
generally,  believed.  It  has  in  some  degree  balanced 
the  absorbing  pursuit  of  wealth.  It  has  in  some 
degree  taken  the  sting  from  social  injustice,  and 
reconciled  the  masses  to  the  unequal  distribution 
of  this  world's  goods.  If  it  has  not  made  men  in 
general  prefer  the  next  world  to  the  present,  it  has 
helped  to  prevent  them  from  seeking  their  ad- 
vancement in  the  present  world  by  cutting  throats 
or  purses.  So  at  least  thought  Voltaire,  whose 
evidence  on  this  point  may  be  deemed  impartial. 
In  fact,  the  authority  of  conscience  depends  on 
the  belief  that  whatever  may  happen  to  us  in  the 


22  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

present  dispensation,  in  the  sum  of  things  it  will 
certainly  be  well  for  him  who  has  done  good,  and 
ill  for  him  who  has  done  evil.  Lay  aside  that 
belief,  and  conscience  will  apparently  lose  its 
authority;  there  will  be  no  moral  influence  but 
that  of  enlarged  expediency,  with  its  social  embodi- 
ments in  custom  or  the  law.  Of  the  social  con- 
sequences of  this  change,  we  seem,  as  has  already 
been  said,  to  be  having  some  premonitory  symp- 
toms. 

Dr.  McConnell  takes  the  bull  by  the  horns. 
True  it  is,  he  says,  that  the  common  view  of  im- 
mortality is  totally  untenable;  true  it  is  that,  as 
science  tells  us,  the  soul  is  not  an  entity  separate 
from  the  body  and  enclosed  in  it  by  a  special 
fiat  of  the  Almighty,  but  simply  the  outcome 
of  our  general  frame ;  true  it  is  that  man  as  a  race 
is  not  essentially  distinguished  from  other  animals, 
which  show  in  a  rudimentary  form  mental  faculties 
and  perhaps,  sentiment  identical  with  those  of  man. 
But  the  Doctor's  theory  is  that  the  common  herd 
of  men  are  not  capable  of  immortality.  The 
common  herd  of  men  have  no  right  or  claim  to  it. 
As  animals  they  have  had  their  life,  and  this  is 
their  whole  due.  Those  only  are  capable  of 


A  NEW  THEORY  OF  IMMORTALITY  23 

immortality  who  by  a  process  of  evolution  have 
risen  to  a  higher  kind  of  life,  not  racial,  but  individ- 
ual and  spiritual,  which  qualifies  them  for  the 
transition.  In  the  Doctor's  newly  minted  phrase- 
ology, man  is  not  "immortal,"  but  only  "immor- 
table";  that  is,  capable  of  immortality.  The 
distinguished  few  will  mount  from  the  present  state 
of  being  to  another,  not  reunited  to  their  terres- 
trial bodies,  but,  as  dwellings  of  some  kind  souls 
must  have,  invested  with  bodies  of  that  luminif- 
erous  or  interstellar  ether,  the  existence  of  which 
Newton  divined  and  recent  science  has  established. 
The  common  herd  will  mingle  with  the  sod,  as 
beseems  their  meagre  speech,  their  shallow  lives, 
their  brutality  and  mischievousness,  their  low 
desires  and  ideals  of  life,  and  their  blank  insen- 
sibility to  any  moral  appeal.  Calvin  could  hardly 
exceed  the  ruthlessness  of  the  demarcation.  What 
sets  on  foot  the  evolution  of  the  chosen  few  Dr. 
McConnell  has  not  clearly  explained  to  us;  nor 
can  his  theory  be  said  to  be  entirely  free  from  the 
arbitrariness  of  the  common  belief  in  regard  to 
the  distribution  of  final  bliss  and  woe,  though  it 
has  the  advantage  of  not  consigning  the  rejected 
to  everlasting  fire.  He  admits  that  he  is  puzzled 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


24  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

by  the  case  of  those  who  are  not  adults.  He 
must  be  equally  puzzled  by  the  case  of  those  who 
die  in  an  early  and  imperfect  stage  of  their  evolu- 
tion. 

Dr.  McConnell  has  the  satisfaction  of  think- 
ing that  his  theory  is  in  perfect  harmony  with 
Christianity,  and  even  that  the  true  meaning  of 
the  teaching  of  Christ  and  his  Apostles  on  the 
subject  of  a  future  state  is  now  for  the  first  time 
made  to  appear.  Marvellous,  he  says,  is  the  agree- 
ment between  his  views  and  the  words  of  Jesus. 
The  words  of  Jesus  and  those  of  St.  Paul  and 
other  apostolic  writers  on  this  subject  especially 
are  so  little  precise,  they  are  so  much  more  homi- 
letic  than  dogmatic,  that  very  different  meanings 
may  without  much  difficulty  be  read  into  them. 
But  in  this  case,  as  with  regard  to  the  theory 
of  an  evolutionary  Revelation,  it  must  surely  strike 
us  as  strange  that,  Revelation  having  been  given 
for  the  enlightenment  and  salvation  of  mankind, 
the  real  key  to  it  should  have  been  withheld  from 
so  many  generations  of  men  and  brought  to  light 
at  last  by  the  voyage  of  the  Beagle. 

Dr.  McConnell,  as  well  as  the  believer  in  the 
common  doctrine,  is  confronted  by  the  fact  that, 


A  NEW  THEORY  OF  IMMORTALITY  2$ 

no  one  having  ever  appeared  or  been  heard  from 
after  death,  his  theory  lacks  the  one  perfectly 
satisfactory  verification.  In  meeting  this  objec- 
tion he  dallies  a  little  with  telepathy,  evidently 
feeling,  however,  that  he  is  here  upon  slippery 
ground.  More  decidedly,  though  not  with  an 
assurance  entirely  orthodox,  he  professes  his  be- 
lief in  the  resurrection  of  Christ.  The  evidence 
of  that  event  has  been  thoroughly  sifted  by  criti- 
cism, and  the  conclusion  to  which  free  inquiries 
have  come  is  sufficiently  well  known.  But  it  is 
certain  that  if  Jesus  appeared  after  death  to  his 
disciples,  it  was  not  in  a  body  of  illuminated  and 
interstellar  ether,  but  in  the  body  which  had  been 
laid  in  the  grave.  So  all  the  Gospels  tell  us  and 
all  the  Churches  have  believed. 

Without  any  special  reference  to  the  work  of 
Dr.  McConnell,  it  may  be  said  that  evolution 
is  in  danger,  like  other  great  discoveries,  of  be- 
coming a  craze.  For  every  problem,  physical, 
moral,  or  theological,  it  is  now  made  to  furnish 
a  solution.  The  theory  is  physical,  and  its  illus- 
trious author  neither  presumed  to  extend  it  to 
anything  not  physical  nor  denied  the  possible 
existence  in  the  universe  or  in  man  of  things 


26  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

beyond  the  cognizance  of  our  bodily  senses.  The 
very  fact  that  our  thoughts  and  aspirations  range 
beyond  earth  and  our  present  state,  is  a  phe- 
nomenon challenging  observation  apart  from  the 
truth  or  falsehood  of  our  ideas.  Apes,  beavers, 
ants,  and  bees  undoubtedly  do  things  which  are 
curiously  like  the  actions  of  men,  and  seem  to 
bespeak  an  intelligence  identical  with  ours;  but 
we  have  no  reason  for  believing  that  they  look 
before  and  after,  that  they  pine  for  what  is  not, 
or  that  they  try  to  peer  behind  the  veil. 
JULY,  1901. 


VII 

THE  BEE    VERSUS  MAN 

"THE  Life  of  the  Bee,"  by  Maurice  Maeter- 
linck, translated  by  Alfred  Sutro,  is  a  very  beauti- 
ful book,  though,  in  its  dealing  with  a  scientific 
subject,  somewhat  poetical,  and  occasionally  bor- 
dering on  rhapsody.  The  writer  throughout 
manifestly  glances  from  the  bee  to  man,  and 
seeks  in  the  name  of  the  bee  to  dispute  man's 
exclusive  claim  to  reason,  forecast,  and  self- 
sacrifice  in  pursuit  of  an  ideal,  with  whatever 
of  still  higher  moment  may  hang  thereby.  That 
this  is  the  main  purport  of  the  book  it  would  per- 
haps be  unsafe  to  say.  One  aspect  of  the  book 
it  certainly  is,  and  it  furnishes  a  distinct  point 
for  consideration. 

We  are  perhaps  paying  the  penalty  of  having 
so  long  assumed  that  man  was  a  being  in  his  origin 
and  nature  distinct  from  all  other  creatures; 
that  his  reason  was  a  prerogative  entirely  above 

their  instinct;    and  that  while  they  were  nothing 

27 


28  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

but  perishable  clay,  he  had  a  soul  separate  from 
his  body,  destined  to  survive  the  body  and  to  be 
reunited  with  its  Maker.  Evolution  has  over- 
turned this  belief.  It  has  told  us  that  the  mate- 
rial origin  of  man  and  beast,  probably  of  the 
vegetable  world  also,  is  the  same.  It  has  told 
us  that  there  is  no  generic  distinction  between 
instinct  and  reason,  instinct  being  reason  in  a 
rudimentary  stage.  It  has  told  us  that  what  we 
took  for  a  distinct  entity  and  called  the  soul  is 
in  reality  a  development.  We  now  seem  inclined 
to  pass  to  the  opposite  extreme,  and  at  once  to 
assume  that  where  there  is  no  corporeal  distinc- 
tion, there  can  be  no  essential  difference,  and 
that  if  the  soul  is  not  a  separate  entity,  spiritual 
life  must  be  a  dream. 

The  embryo  of  a  man  and  that  of  a  dog,  sci- 
ence tells  us,  are  alike.  From  this  scientific  fact 
either  of  two  inferences  may  apparently  be  drawn. 
It  may  be  concluded  either  that  there  is  no  essen- 
tial difference  between  the  man  and  the  dog,  or 
that  the  structure  of  the  embryo  is  not  decisive. 
If  we  were  to  go  back  to  the  nebula,  whatever 
slight  difference  there  might  be  would  totally 
disappear.  Let  the  origin  and  process  of  develop- 


THE  BEE   VERSUS  MAN  29 

ment  in  the  two  cases  have  been  what  they  may, 
we  still  are  what  we  are.  There  can  surely  be 
no  such  thing  as  essential  difference  if  it  does 
not  exist  between  a  man  and  a  dog. 

The  habits  of  bees,  as  described  by  M.  Maeter- 
linck, are  marvellous  in  the  highest  degree;  and 
not  less  marvellous  are  the  scientific  industry 
and  acumen  by  which  they  have  been  explored. 
They  are  more  wonderful,  perhaps,  than  those  of 
ants,  beavers,  or  apes.  Yet  I  fail  to  see  in  them 
anything  which  puts  the  bee  at  all  on  a  level 
with  civilized  man.  They  all  seem  to  me  to  be 
such  as,  without  discursive  intelligence  or  delib- 
erate effort,  the  drilling  of  environment  and  cir- 
cumstance, prolonged  through  aeons,  may  con- 
ceivably have  produced.  ^Eons  must  certainly 
be  assumed  for  the  purpose  of  evolution,  if  evo- 
lution is  the  creation  of  species  by  the  improve- 
ment, through  environment  and  circumstance, 
of  accidental  variations.  We  can  hardly  recog- 
nize as  spontaneous  effort  for  improvement  the 
action  of  a  bee  in  availing  itself  of  a  piece  of  ready- 
made  wax  which  had  been  put  in  its  way.  Of 
course  we  cannot  credit  the  insects  with  anything 
that  has  been  done  for  them  by  man;  with 


3<D  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

anything  at  least  beyond  the  acceptance  of  new 
conditions.  A  general  estimate  of  what  has  been 
done  for  the  hive  by  man  would  make  our  view 
of  the  subject  more  complete. 

The  actions  and  productions  characteristic  of 
man,  his  political  and  social  experiments,  his 
scientific  investigations,  his  mathematics,  his  lit- 
erature, his  poetry,  his  art,  cannot  be  ascribed 
to  mere  drilling  by  environment  and  circumstance ; 
they  are  the  work  of  conscious  effort  and  discur- 
sive intelligence. 

The  " spirit  of  the  hive"  is  a  term  habitually 
employed  by  M.  Maeterlinck.  But  can  it  be 
said  to  be  warranted?  Routine  necessary  to 
subsistence,  though  unvarying,  can  hardly  be 
called  "  spirit "  or  compared  with  a  consciousness 
of  duty  to  the  nation  and  humanity  such  as  exists, 
however  imperfectly  or  fitfully,  in  communities 
of  civilized  men  and  rising  to  its  highest  level  in 
the  great  benefactors  of  the  race.  "The  god 
of  the  bees  is  the  future."  Making  due  allow- 
ance for  the  metaphor,  we  cannot  help  asking 
on  what  this  assumption  rests.  What  idea  of 
the  future  or  of  anything  but  the  interests  and 
operations  of  their  own  time  and  hive  can  the 


THE  BEE   VERSUS  MAN  31 

insects  be  said  ever  to  have  displayed?  We  are 
asked  if  we  have  often  "  encountered  an  ideal  more 
conformable  to  the  desires  of  the  universe,  more 
widely  manifest,  more  disinterested  or  sublime, 
or  an  abnegation  more  complete  and  heroic." 
But  the  question  surely  is  whether,  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  bees,  we  have  encountered  an  ideal 
at  all,  as  we  certainly  have  in  the  history  of  man. 
A  general  ideal  of  the  progress  and  destiny  of 
their  race  they  can  hardly  have  if  their  sympathy 
and  cooperation  are  entirely  confined,  as  M. 
Maeterlinck  tells  us,  to  the  bees  of  their  own  hives ; 
if  between  the  different  hives,  even  those  of -the 
same  origin,  there  is  no  sympathy  or  connection 
whatever.  Nor  does  it  seem  that  there  can  be 
any  pervading  sense  of  a  community  of  race  like 
our  sense  of  a  common  humanity,  when,  as  M. 
Maeterlinck  tells  us,  you  may  crush,  a  few  steps 
from  their  dwelling,  twenty  or  thirty  bees  that 
have  all  issued  from  the  same  hive,  and  you  will 
find  that  those  which  are  left  untouched  will  not 
even  turn  their  heads. 

The  vegetable  world,  too,  has  its  wonders. 
"We  are  struck,"  says  M.  Maeterlinck,  "by  the 
genius  that  some  of  our  humblest  flowers  display 


32  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

in  contriving  that  the  visit  of  the  bee  shall  infallibly 
procure  them  the  cross-fertilization  they  need." 
He  bids  us  see  "the  marvellous  fashion  in  which 
the  orchis  Moris  combines  the  flag  of  its  rostellum 
and  retinacula;  observe  the  mathematical  and 
automatic  inclination  and  adhesion  of  its  polynia ; 
the  unerring  double  see-saw  of  the  anthers  of 
the  wild  sage,  which  touch  the  body  of  the  visiting 
insect  at  a  particular  spot  in  order  that  the  insect 
may  in  its  turn  touch  the  stigma  of  the  neighbor- 
ing flower  at  another  particular  spot;  and,  in 
the  case  of  the  Pedicularis  sylvatica,  the  succes- 
sive calculated  movements  of  its  stigma."  Do 
not  these  contrivances  almost  rival  the  bee's 
hexagon?  Might  not  such  phrases  as  guiding 
"spirit"  and  devotion  to  the  "future"  as  "god" 
be  applied  to  these  plants  as  reasonably  as  to  the 
bee? 

That  the  hive  bees  have  been  developed  out 
of  lower,  less  gregarious,  and  less  communistic 
races,  seems  certain;  to  that  extent  a  claim  of 
progress  must  be  allowed.  On  the  other  hand, 
Egyptian  monuments  appear  to  demonstrate  that 
there  has  been  no  material  change  in  the  structure 
of  the  comb  for  many  thousands  of  years.  And 


THE  BEE   VERSUS  MAN  33 

now  perfect  monotony  appears  to  reign ;  one  hive 
is  the  counterpart  of  another.  In  human  common- 
wealths meanwhile  there  have  been  immense 
changes;  and  there  is  now  a  great  variety,  the 
result  of  struggle  more  or  less  pronounced  for  the 
attainment  of  a  higher  state. 

It  is  hardly  safe  to  assume  that  when  animals 
do  anything  conducive  to  the  advantage  of  the 
tribe  they  do  it  with  understanding.  Stags  fight 
in  the  rutting  season.  Their  fighting  conduces 
to  the  selection  of  the  best  sire  for  the  herd.  But 
can  they  be  said  to  fight  with  that  intention? 

Is  reason  in  the  human  sense  of  the  term  pos- 
sible without  language?  Is  sustained  progress 
possible  without  writing?  Bees  evidently  do 
communicate  as  well  as  cooperate  with  each  other, 
but  it  seems  to  be  only  in  the  most  rudimentary 
way  and  about  a  most  limited  range  of  subjects. 
They  certainly  do  not  write  or  in  any  way  record 
their  thoughts  and  experiences  so  as  to  store 
them  for  posterity. 

Defects,  such  as  the  massacre  of  the  males, 
the  author  admits.  But  a  superior  being,  looking 
down  upon  the  ways  of  men,  would,  M.  Maeter- 
linck says,  see  great  defects  there  also.  He  would 


34  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

see  idle  wealth  lodged  in  luxurious  palaces,  indus- 
trious poverty  lodged  in  hovels.  However,  looking 
close,  he  would  see  that  not  all  wealth  is  idle, 
and  that  its  attainment  was  the  incentive  to  labor. 
But  he  would  see,  moreover,  that  man  was  always 
struggling  against  the  defects  of  society,  that  in 
the  higher  communities  philanthropy  was  at  work, 
that  plans  of  reform  were  on  foot,  that  dreams 
of  social  perfection  were  being  dreamed.  Is 
there  anything  analogous  to  this  in  the  common- 
wealth of  the  bees?  Is  there  the  slightest  reason 
for  supposing  that  they  take  thought  for  the  im- 
provement and  elevation  of  their  race? 

It  is  in  the  " nuptial  flight"  that  the  writer's 
poetry  rises  to  its  highest  pitch.  Exact  observa- 
tion of  the  union  of  the  queen  bee  with  the  male 
chosen  for  the  purpose  of  impregnation  there 
can  hardly  have  been,  as  it  takes  place  in  the  sky. 
But  accepting  the  description  as  it  is  given  us, 
how  can  this  momentary  and  coarse  embrace, 
in  which  the  entrails  of  the  male  are  torn  out 
and  he  perishes,  bear  comparison  with  romantic 
love  and  pure  conjugal  affection?  It  is  true 
that  romantic  love  and  conjugal  affection  of  the 
highest  kind  are  found  only  in  civilized  man; 


THE  BEE   VERSUS  MAN  35 

but  in  civilized  man  they  are  found,  and  men  as 
a  race  are  capable  of  civilization. 

"Sad  let  it  be,"  says  M.  Maeterlinck,  dismiss- 
ing a  melancholy  portion  of  his  subject,  "as  all 
things  in  nature  are  sad  when  our  eyes  rest  too 
closely  upon  them.  And  thus  it  ever  shall  be 
so  long  as  we  know  not  her  secret,  know  not  even 
whether  secret  truly  there  be.  And  should  we 
discover  some  day  that  there  is  no  secret  or  that 
the  secret  is  monstrous,  other  duties  will  then 
arise  that  as  yet  perhaps  have  no  name."  There 
is  no  use  in  attempting  to  veil  the  fact,  which 
is  already  casting  its  shadow  over  our  life. 
Toward  the  belief  that  there  is  no  secret  or  that 
the  secret  is  monstrous,  toward  the  belief,  in 
other  words,  that  the  world  is  ruled  by  force  with- 
out design,  of  which  man  and  his  history  are  a 
play,  science  and  thought  are  at  present  tending. 
If  this  is  the  truth,  we  must  bow,  though  the 
materialist  can  hardly  expect  us  to  rejoice,  and 
make  each  of  us  the  best  we  can  of  our  brief  lease 
of  existence.  Two  things,  however,  may  still 
be  whispered  on  the  other  side.  One  is  that  the 
phenomena  of  what  we  have  hitherto  called  man's 
spiritual  nature,  his  sense  of  moral  responsibility, 


36  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

his  appreciation  of  moral  beauty,  his  moral 
aspirations,  his  conception  of  a  state  beyond 
the  present,  the  refinement  of  his  affections, 
his  poetry  and  art,  his  conscious  and  forecasting 
efforts  for  the  improvement,  moral  as  well  as 
material,  of  himself  and  his  race,  in  themselves 
claim  consideration'  like  other  phenomena  sub- 
mitted to  science,  whatever  may  be  the  physical 
genesis  of  man  or  the  soundness  of  his  particular 
conceptions.  Another  is  that  we  have  appar- 
ently no  sufficient  reason  at  present  to  conclude 
that  there  is  nothing  in  the  universe,  or  nothing 
cognizable  by  us,  beyond  that  which  is  perceived 
by  our  bodily  senses  and  is  the  subject  of  physical 
science. 

There  is  nothing,  I  hope,  in  what  has  now 
been  said  at  variance  with  thorough  loyalty  to 
scientific  truth  or  with  just  appreciation  of  a 
very  interesting  and  charming  book. 

AUGUST,  1901. 


VIII 

THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

THE  battle  with  Tammany  did  not  suspend  the 
discussion  in  the  Sun's  columns  of  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul  and  its  relation  to  morality. 
Nothing  can  be  more  intensely  practical  than 
this  question.  Since  the  decline  of  religious 
belief,  morality  has  been  dragging  its  anchor, 
and  our  state  of  transitional  perplexity  may  be 
one  source  at  least  of  much  of  the  practical 
disturbance  of  the  world. 

One  bold  thinker  says  that  morality  without 
immortality  is  a  sentimental  humbug.  As  an 
agnostic  or  an  atheist,  he  claims  the  right  of  making 
his  own  moral  law.  Subjectively,  no  doubt,  he 
has  that  right.  Objectively  he  will  find  the 
limit  of  the  right  in  the  club  of  the  nearest  police- 
man. Whatever  turn  may  ultimately  be  taken 
by  our  convictions  about  a  hereafter,  society  will 
uphold  by  law  or  social  influence  rules  necessary 
to  its  own  security  and  convenience  here.  It  may 

37 


38  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

even  uphold  them  more  rigorously  than  ever 
when  it  is  convinced  that  the  present  life  is 
all.  The  natural  affections,  parental,  conjugal, 
and  social,  will  also  retain  their  force. 

So  far,  however,  as  conscience  is  concerned 
this  dauntless  agnostic  is  logical.  Immortality  is 
an  idea  which  my  mind  fails  to  grasp,  as  it  fails 
to  grasp  the  ideas  of  eternity,  infinity,  omnipo- 
tence, or  first  cause.  But  if  this  life  ends  all, 
I  do  not  see  how  conscience  can  retain  its 
authority.  The  authority  of  conscience,  it  seems 
to  me,  is  religious.  The  sanction  of  its  awards 
appears  to  be  something  beyond  and  above 
temporal  interest,  utility,  or  the  dictates  of  society 
and  law.  In  the  absence  of  such  a  sanction  what 
can  there  be  to  prevent  a  man  from  following  his 
own  inclinations,  good  or  bad,  beneficent  or  mur- 
derous, so  long  as  he  keeps  within  the  pale  of  law 
or  manages  to  escape  the  police?  One  man  is  a 
lamb  by  nature,  another  is  a  tiger.  Why  is  not 
the  tiger  as  well  as  the  lamb  to  follow  his  nature 
so  far  as  the  law  will  let  him  or  as  he  has  power? 
Eccelino,  for  instance,  was  by  nature  a  devil 
incarnate,  a  sort  of  Satanic  enthusiast  of  evil. 
What  had  merely  utilitarian  morality  to  say  against 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL  39 

his  gratification  of  his  propensities  as  long  as  he 
had  power  on  his  side? 

The  age  of  Machiavel  was  something  like  ours, 
in  being  one  of  religious  eclipse  attended  by  fail- 
ure of  the  traditional  foundation  of  morality. 
A  domination  of  self-interest  without  regard  for 
moral  restrictions  was  the  result. 

I  do  not  presume  to  put  forward  any  hypothe- 
sis. I  merely  call  attention  to  certain  phenomena 
of  humanity  which  seem  at  first  sight  to  militate 
against  the  purely  materialist  view.  Our  power 
of  choice  in  action,  which,  without  belying  our 
consciousness,  cannot  be  denied;  our  consequent 
sense  of  responsibility ;  our  moral  aspirations  and 
endeavors;  our  conceptions  of  a  higher  state  of 
being  and  desire  to  press  onward  towards  it ;  all 
the  phenomena,  in  a  word,  of  what  has  hitherto 
been  called  our  spiritual  nature  —  by  what  pro- 
cess of  physical  evolution  can  we  suppose  these 
to  have  been  produced? 

Heartily  accepting  evolution,  I  demur  to  the 
assumption  that  physical  development  is  the 
end,  as  well  as  to  the  assumption  that  nothing 
of  which  our  bodily  senses  are  not  cognizant  can 
be  true. 


40  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

Perfection  may  be  produced  by  the  fiat  of 
Omnipotence.  This  clearly  is  not  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  universe,  since  the  universe  is  full  of 
imperfection.  Physical  progress  may  be  made 
by  evolution,  which  out  of  the  worm  has  evolved 
the  frame  of  man.  But  there  is  another  mode 
of  progress  of  which  we  are  conscious  in  ourselves, 
and  of  which  man's  history,  so  far  as  it  is  progres- 
sive, is  the  outcome.  This  is  intelligent  effort. 
In  fact,  we  can  hardly  understand  any  moral  per- 
fection or  excellence  of  character  except  as  the 
product  of  effort.  A  seraph  is  insipidity  with 
unanatomic  wings. 

It  constitutes  for  us  a  special  interest  in  an- 
cient masters  of  ethics,  Plato,  Aristotle,  Marcus 
Aurelius,  and  Epictetus,  that,  while  they 
looked  at  human  nature  with  eyes  as  clear 
as  ours,  they  were  without  our  special  prepos- 
sessions. From  the  State  polytheism  they  had 
broken  away.  Yet  in  all  of  them  you  find  recog- 
nition of  the  character  produced  by  moral  effort 
and  transcending  mere  utility.  This  is  especially 
striking  in  Plato,  who  is  so  far  from  utilitarianism 
that  he  even  looks  on  martyrdom  as  the  natural 
meed  of  the  righteous.  It  is  less  striking  in 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL  41 

Aristotle,  whose  ideal  is  an  animated  Greek 
statue,  but  still  it  is  there.  In  Plato  there  is  a 
distinct  connection  of  virtue  with  a  personal 
though  unseen  power  of  good.  In  Marcus  Aure- 
lius  and  Epictetus  the  power  is  not  personal,  but 
there  is  a  power. 

I  have  assumed  that  as  agents  we  have  liberty 
of  choice.  I  eschew  the  term  "free  will,"  leaving 
it  to  the  metaphysical  angels  in  Milton's  Hell. 
The  necessarian  hypothesis,  seeing  that  the  chain 
of  causation  stretches  back  indefinitely,  must 
imply  that  all  our  actions  were  irrevocably  set- 
tled in  the  very  beginning  of  things.  Not  having 
seen  the  beginning  of  things,  I  cannot  say;  but 
unless  my  whole  moral  being  is  a  delusion,  I  have 
liberty  of  choice. 

Frank  acceptance  of  all  proved  truth,  such  as 
the  general  theory  of  evolution;  caution  in  sur- 
rendering ourselves  to  the  last  great  discovery; 
recognition  and  examination  of  all  phenomena, 
not  physical  only,  but  of  every  kind,  together 
form  the  compass  to  which  we  must  look  for 
guidance  over  a  dark  and  perilous  sea. 

DECEMBER,  1901. 


IX 

THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

THE  correspondents  of  the  Sun  still  keep  up 
the  philosophic  debate  about  the  nature  and 
destiny  of  man.  No  question  can  be  more 
truly  practical  than  that  which  concerns  the 
authority  of  conscience  and  the  basis  of  moral- 
ity, personal,  social,  and  international.  We  are 
everywhere  met  by  the  effects  of  the  present 
moral  doubts  and  distractions. 

One  of  the  correspondents,  apparently  a 
thorough-going  necessarian,  quotes  in  support  of 
his  theory  a  passage  of  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes :  — 

"The  more  I  have  observed  and  reflected  the  more 
limited  seems  to  me  the  field  of  action  of  the  human  will. 
Every  act  of  choice  involves  a  special  relation  between 
the  ego  and  the  conditions  before  it.  But  no  man  knows 
what  forces  are  at  work  in  the  determination  of  his  ego. 
The  bias  which  decides  his  choice  between  two  or  more 
motives  may  come  from  some  unsuspected  ancestral  source, 
of  which  he  knows  nothing  at  all.  He  is  automatic  in 
virtue  of  that  hidden  spring  of  reflex  action,  all  the  time 

42 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL  43 

having  the  feeling  that  he  is  self-determining.  The  story 
of  Elsie  Venner  illustrates  the  direction  in  which  my 
thought  was  moving.  The  imaginary  subject  of  the  story 
obeyed  her  w ill,  but  her  will  obeyed  the  mysterious  ante- 
natal poisoning  influence." 

This  passage  seems  to  me  rather  literary  than 
philosophic.  However,  it  says  only  that  the 
human  will  or  whatever  it  is  that  constitutes  our 
moral  responsibility  is  " limited."  Nobody  sup- 
poses that  our  liberty  of  choice  is  unlimited  or 
that  the  will  operates  in  a  vacuum.  Necessarian- 
ism,  I  suspect,  is  at  bottom  merely  a  mental 
puzzle,  which  may  perplex  our  conceptions,  but 
does  not  affect  our  actions.  No  man  practically 
applies  it  either  to  his  own  actions  or  to  those  of  his 
fellows.  The  belief  upon  which  we  all  act  and  by 
which  we  always  judge  actions  is  that  of  moral 
responsibility,  which  implies  a  freedom  of  choice, 
however  limited.  Achilles  does  overtake  the 
tortoise  in  spite  of  a  demonstration,  apparently 
logical,  that  he  will  not ;  and  though  we  may  have 
a  logical  difficulty  in  rebutting  absolute  causation 
we  do  deliberate  and  decide.  For  my  part  I 
must  say  that  I  do  not  expect  to  see  the  exact 
relation  of  will  to  preexisting  character  and 


44  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

circumstance  stated  in  a  precise  and  scientific  form. 
Huxley  had  at  one  time  got  himself  entangled 
in  the  notion  that  man  was  an  automaton  which 
had  become  automatically  conscious  of  its  own 
automatism;  but  I  believe  he  shook  it  off  in  the 
end. 

Necessarianism,  or  a  denial  of  the  freedom  of 
the  will,  appears  to  assume  that  there  is  only  one 
element  in  action,  the  predisposing  motive.  Ap- 
peal to  our  consciousness  seems  to  tell  us  that 
there  are  two:  the  antecedent  motive  and  voli- 
tion. In  ordinary  action  the  duality  is  not  per- 
ceived; in  doubtful  and  hesitating  action  it  is. 

Another  of  the  correspondents  seems  to  me, 
with  all  deference  be  it  said,  to  exemplify  the 
tendency  of  great  discoveries,  when  victorious 
in  their  inevitable  combat  with  prejudice,  to  pur- 
sue their  victory  too  far.  The  discoverer  of 
evolution,  however,  is  not  responsible  for  the 
present  tendency  to  regard  the  nature  of  man 
as  merely  physical  and  to  treat  the  community 
on  that  principle.  Why  should  we  not  weed  out 
the  human  herd  as  we  do  the  herd  of  kine  or  the 
flock  of  sheep,  killing  off  the  unpromising  and 
allowing  only  the  more  promising  organizations 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL  45 

to  live?  A  sufficient  reason,  setting  aside 
all  mere  traditional  reverence  for  humanity,  is 
that  while  in  the  case  of  the  kine  or  the  sheep  we 
can  see  everything  that  is  necessary  to  determine 
our  selection,  we  cannot  see  that  which  is  most 
necessary  to  determine  our  selection  in  the  in- 
tellectual and  moral  being,  man.  The  cor- 
respondent, if  I  rightly  understand  him,  would 
have  " society"  put  to  death  the  " socially  unfit " 
or  disable  them  from  propagation.  What  is 
"society"  but  the  government?  and  what  gov- 
ernment, even  with  the  aid  of  the  best  experts, 
could  see  so  far  into  the  inner  man  as  fitly  to 
undertake  the  process  of  elimination?  Where 
would  the  line  between  social  fitness  and  unfitness 
be  drawn  ?  What  would  be  the  outward  signs  of 
unfitness  ?  Those  who  are  convicted  of  crime  you 
might  hang  or  subject  to  the  alternative  treatment 
suggested.  But  in  the  case  of  the  unconvicted, 
what  is  your  test  ?  How  can  you  foresee  develop- 
ment? Socrates  confessed  that  it  was  through  a 
hard  struggle  that  he  attained  virtue.  An  ultra- 
evolutionist  would  have  eliminated  him  in  his 
first  stage.  Nero,  on  the  other  hand,  set  out 
well. 


46  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

A  metaphysical  book,  it  seems,  has  reached  its 
eighth  edition.  This  shows  that  a  number  of 
inquirers  are  still  upon  that  track.  Is  there  any 
hope  in  that  direction  ?  Is  it  possible  that  mental 
introspection  should  lead  us  to  objective  truth? 
Might  we  not  as  well  look  for  scientific  fact  in 
the  structure  of  a  scientific  instrument,  as  for 
objective  truth  in  the  structure  of  the  mind? 
Intellects  of  the  highest  order  have  been  devoted 
to  metaphysic;  and  with  what  result?  From 
the  Greek  philosophers  to  the  schoolmen,  from 
the  schoolmen  to  the  Germans,  system  succeeds 
to  system,  without  progress  or  practical  outcome. 
Even  the  reputed  discoveries  of  Berkeley  have 
borne  no  practical  fruit,  and  Hegel  is  already  as 
dead  as  Pythagoras.  Meantime  genuine  science 
wins  a  series  of  practical  triumphs  and  is  ad- 
vanced even  by  partial  errors.  The  datum 
assumed  by  metaphysic  throughout  is  that 
reality  must  correspond  to  conception.  No  such 
assumption  is  involved  in  our  belief  in  moral 
responsibility  or  other  spiritual  phenomena  of 
human  nature,  which  are  facts  of  mental  ex- 
perience and  observation  though  not  of  bodily 
sense. 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL  47 

We  have  specially  to  be  on  our  guard  against 
the  attempts  of  some  writers  of  the  metaphysical 
school  to  shake  the  foundation  of  all  scientific  or 
rational  belief,  by  reducing  everything  to  philo- 
sophic doubt,  and  thus  to  place  us  at  the  mercy 
of  orthodox  tradition.  Dean  Mansel  was  sup- 
posed in  his  Oxford  sermons,  by  demonstrating 
our  inability  to  grasp  the  Unconditional  or  com- 
prehend divine  morality,  to  have  made  scepticism 
slay  itself  with  its  own  sword.  Loud  was  the 
applause  of  orthodoxy.  But  one  shrewd  head  of 
a  college  as  he  came  away  from  the  University 
Church,  said,  "I  never  expected  to  hear  atheism 
preached  from  the  pulpit  of  the  university." 

JANUARY,  1902. 


EASTER 

EASTER  revives  the  discussion  of  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul,  of  which  the  Resurrection  of 
Jesus  is  regarded  by  Christendom  as  the  pledge, 
though  the  fact  that  Deity  could  not  be  holden 
of  death  would  hardly  in  itself  be  a  pledge  that 
death  shall  not  hold  mere  humanity. 

At  Easter  a  year  or  two  ago  I  heard  a  preacher 
speak  of  the  Resurrection  of  Jesus  as  the  best 
attested  of  all  historical  events.  So  far  a  fond 
adherence  to  tradition  could  carry  him !  If  the 
event  really  happened  and  is  of  such  unspeakable 
importance  as  has  been  supposed,  it  would  be 
reasonable,  and  more  than  reasonable,  to  expect 
not  only  that  the  evidence  of  it  should  be  better 
than  that  of  any  other  historical  event,  but  almost 
that  there  should  be  a  standing  miracle  of  some 
sort  to  place  it  forever  beyond  the  possibility  of 
doubt.  The  fact,  however,  is  that  the  narratives 

are  anonymous ;  that  their  authorship  is  unknown ; 

48 


EASTER  49 

that  they  are  of  uncertain  date ;  that  they  are  hope- 
lessly at  variance  with  each  other.  The  attempts 
to  harmonize  them,  such  as  that  of  Dr.  Greswell, 
serve  only  to  make  the  inconsistencies  more 
glaring.  Is  it  conceivable  that  the  records  of  an 
event  on  which  the  salvation  of  mankind  depends 
should  be  left  to  be  cleared  from  doubt  and  con- 
fusion by  the  hermeneutic  ingenuity  of  a  divine 
in  the  nineteenth  century? 

A  personal  impression,  however  strong,  however 
deepened  by  Church  art  as  well  as  by  theology,  is 
no  evidence.  It  is  inconceivable  that  the  power 
which  ordained  such  an  event  and  for  such  a 
purpose  should  have  left  its  authenticity  to  rest 
upon  impressions.  There  can  be  no  use  in 
fondly  clinging  for  support  to  that  which  itself 
cannot  stand.  Still  the  exclamation  with  which 
the  Eastern  Church  hails  Easter  morning  is  true. 
As  the  Founder  of  Christendom,  Christ  is  risen 
indeed. 

These  questions,  as  has  been  said  before, 
speculative  as  they  may  seem  to  those  who  deem 
themselves  practical  men,  are  really  practical  and 
urgent  in  the  highest  degree.  The  conscience 
which  we  have  hitherto  obeyed,  or  endeavored 


50  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

approximately  to  obey,  and  which  has  more  or 
less  kept  the  world  in  order,  seems  in  its  nature 
religious.  It  has  claimed,  and  to  some  extent 
practically  asserted,  an  authority  beyond  that  of 
any  earthly  tribunal.  It  has  proclaimed  that  it 
shall  be  well  with  those  who  do  good  and  ill  with 
those  who  do  evil,  not  only  in  this  transitory 
life.  It  has  bidden  the  righteous,  suffering  from 
injustice  here,  appeal  to  a  higher  tribunal,  and 
threatened  the  unrighteous  on  whom  fortune  in 
the  present  world  smiles  with  a  reversal  of  their 
lot  hereafter.  The  most  comprehensive  view  of 
our  temporal  interest,  even  though  it  may  embrace 
the  whole  compass  of  our  social  affections,  is  not 
what  we  mean  by  conscience. 

Every  day  brings  fresh  proof  of  the  fact  that  by 
the  collapse  of  the  traditional  beliefs  on  which 
morality  has  hitherto  largely  rested  morality  itself 
is  being  shaken,  so  that  there  is  a  danger  of  a 
moral  interregnum  like  that  which  there  was 
between  the  fall  of  mediaeval  Catholicism  and  the 
rise  of  Protestantism,  aggravated,  moreover,  by 
the  struggle  for  gain.  The  rule  of  conduct  for 
nations  toward  each  other  threatens  to  be  not 
antiquated  righteousness,  but  conformity  to  the 


EASTER  5! 

indications  of  the  stars  in  their  courses;  in 
other  words,  seizure  of  all  opportunities  of  ag- 
grandizement without  regard  to  the  rights  of 
others.  One  cannot  help  respecting  the  memory 
of  the  Barbary  corsair,  who  did  not  talk  about  the 
stars  in  their  courses,  or  about  duty  taking  the 
hand  of  destiny,  or  about  a  providential  mission, 
but  said  frankly  that  he  wanted  his  neighbors' 
goods,  and  if  the  owner  tried  to  keep  them  he 
would  knock  him  on  the  head. 

So  eminent  a  thinker  as  Dr.  Felix  Adler  regards 
personal  immortality  as  a  thing  not  to  be  desired, 
but  as  a  thing  to  be  dreaded.  It  involves,  he 
says,  endless  suffering  and  interminable  strug- 
gling toward  some  higher  plane  of  existence 
which  still  always  rises  above  you.  His  senti- 
ment appears  to  be  somewhat  like  that  of  the 
Buddhist,  who  strives  by  intense  self-effacement 
to  escape  from  the  burden  of  conscious  personality 
and  the  interminable  series  of  transformations. 
But  if  Dr.  Felix  Adler  recoils  from  the  prospect  of 
personal  immortality,  does  not  he,  or  do  not  men 
in  general,  recoil  from  the  prospect  of  personal 
annihilation  ?  Apart  from  our  individual  destiny, 
is  it  not  sad  to  think  of  all  the  uncompensated 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 


52  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

suffering  which,  on  the  hypothesis  that  existence 
ends  here,  fills  the  pages  of  human  history  ?  Does 
death  level  not  only  the  king  with  the  beggar, 
but  the  best  of  men  and  the  greatest  benefactor 
of  his  kind  with  the  worst  of  tyrants  or  assassins? 
If  it  does,  can  we  believe  in  the  moral  govern- 
ment of  the  world?  If  we  cannot  believe  in  the 
moral  government  of  the  world,  where  is  the 
sanction  of  morality? 

Nor,  again,  can  we  contemplate  without  sor- 
row the  prospect  of  final  separation  from  those 
we  love? 

Immortality,  as  has  been  said  before,  like 
infinity  or  eternity,  transcends  our  power  of  con- 
ception. The  attempt  to  realize  it  only  produces 
a  sort  of  dizziness  in  the  mind.  It  seems  better 
to  set  that  term  aside,  and  simply  to  consider 
whether  it  is  certain  or  probable  that  all  ends  for 
us  with  death.  There  are  phenomena  in  our 
nature  which,  apparently,  are  not  physical,  but 
seem  to  point  to  something  beyond  our  physical 
existence.  They  constitute  in  the  aggregate  what 
we  have  called  our  spiritual  life,  including  our 
sense  of  moral  responsibility,  our  moral  aspira- 
tions, our  feeling  for  moral  beauty,  our  power  of 


EASTER  53 

idealization,  our  higher  and  more  perfect  human 
affections.  Is  there  anything  to  which  these 
point  ?  May  there  not  still  be  something  behind 
the  veil? 

Clinging  to  tradition,  however  entwined  the 
tradition  may  be  with  all  our  associations,  is,  in 
the  face  of  the  revelations  of  science  and  criticism, 
no  longer  possible.  We  are  in  danger  of  falling 
from  that  state  into  a  blind  and  even  fanatical 
materialism,  which,  if  we  could  see  behind  the 
veil,  might  be  found  to  be  no  more  identical  than 
tradition  itself  with  the  progressive  purpose  of 
the  universe. 

APRIL,  1902. 


XI 

EASTER 

No  one  whose  life  has  not  been  devoted  to  the 
study  can  pretend  to  have  read  everything  that 
has  been  written  on  either  side  about  the  author- 
ship, dates,  and  historical  character  of  the  Gos- 
pels. But  I  have  read  enough  on  both  sides  to 
convince  me  that  the  authorship  and  dates  are 
doubtful;  that  the  Gospels  contain  much  unhis- 
toric  matter ;  and  that  they  are  often  and  seriously 
at  variance  with  each  other.  The  variations  are 
especially  marked  and  irreconcilable  in  the  narra- 
tives of  the  Resurrection.  Moreover,  these  nar- 
ratives are  connected  with  such  prodigies  as  the 
miraculous  darkness,  the  rending  of  the  veil  of 
the  Temple,  and  the  apparitions  of  the  dead  in  the 
streets  of  Jerusalem,  which  could  not  have  oc- 
curred without  making  a  tremendous  impression  or 
without  leaving  their  trace  in  history.  It  may  be 
true,  as  one  of  your  correspondents  says,  that  we 
cannot  set  limits  to  the  action  of  Providence.  But 

54 


EASTER  55 

we  are  surely  justified  in  assuming  that  Providence 
would  not,  in  communicating  vital  truths  to  men, 
contravene  its  own  purpose  by  simulating  the 
defects  of  human  evidence. 

Besides,  we  have  to  meet  the  general  objection 
to  the  whole  supernatural  system  of  which  the 
Resurrection  is  an  integral  part.  Science  has 
indisputably  proved  that  instead  of  being  created 
perfect  and  falling  from  perfection,  man  rose  by 
evolution  from  a  lower  organization  to  a  higher; 
and  if  there  was  no  Fall,  how  can  there  be  room 
for  the  belief  in  the  Incarnation  and  the  Redemp- 
tion? 

It  is  a  subject  on  which  it  may  be  painful  to 
piety  to  dwell,  but  is  it  possible  to  follow  in  imagi- 
nation the  details  of  the  Incarnation,  with  the 
relations  of  the  two  natures  to  each  other,  both 
here  on  earth  and  after  the  Ascension,  without 
feeling  the  impossibility  of  conception,  and  there- 
fore of  belief?  Newman  desired  his  disciples 
specially  to  mark  that  it  was  Almighty  God  that 
endured  the  scourging;  and  Frederick  Faber, 
one  of  Newman's  circle,  described  the  babe  as 
sleeping  in  the  mother's  arms,  when  she  had 
slaked  its  thirst  and  stilled  its  cry,  yet  with  its 


56  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

sleeping  eye  seeing  the  universe,  and  all  that  was 
therein.  We  may  repeat,  but  we  cannot  realize 
the  creeds.  Probably  their  theosophic  authors 
did  not,  though  their  cosmogony  was  much 
narrower  than  ours. 

The  sublimities  of  the  Mosaic  story  of  creation, 
in  spite  of  some  strongly  anthropomorphic  pas- 
sages, have  wonderfully  prolonged  its  hold.  But 
its  mythical  character  can  no  longer  be  denied 
by  any  one  whose  mind  is  open  to  scientific  truth. 
In  fact,  of  the  orthodox  clergy,  not  a  few  are  ready 
to  embrace  the  expedient  of  allegorical  interpre- 
tation, which,  it  is  needless  to  say,  amounts  to 
surrender  of  the  case. 

This  is  said  in  no  spirit  of  general  scepticism 
or  destructiveness,  but  very  much  the  reverse. 
It  surely  is  worse  than  vain  to  cling  to  dead  beliefs. 
Our  only  hope  of  salvation  lies  in  the  full  and 
hearty,  though  reverent  and  discriminating,  ac- 
ceptance of  that  which  is  now  the  revealed  truth, 
though  reason  is  the  organ  of  the  revelation.  In 
trying  to  save  the  creeds  we  may  make  jettison 
of  spiritual  life. 

It  is  said  truly  that  the  revision  of  antiquated 
creeds,  such  as  the  Westminster  Confession,  is  a 


EASTER  57 

desperate  undertaking.  Those  who  attempt  it 
are  trying  to  revise  the  sixteenth  century.  Surely 
the  wiser  course  would  be  to  let  the  old  creeds 
remain  as  they  are,  for  whatever  they  may  still  be 
worth;  but  to  cease  to  impose  them,  or  any 
human  manifesto,  as  ordination  tests.  Let  the 
engagement  at  ordination  be  one  simply  binding 
the  minister  to  preach  what  in  his  conscience  he 
believes  to  be  the  truth.  An  enlightened  laity 
asks  for  no  better  credentials  on  the  part  of  its 
teacher. 

The  Sun  speaks  of  the  remarkable  spread  of 
ritualism,  even  in  churches  which  are  not  sacer- 
dotal and  do  not  pretend  to  apostolical  succession. 
Ritualism  has  had  two  epochs  and  two  phases.  In 
England,  when  the  advance  of  liberalism  after  the 
passing  of  the  Reform  act  threatened  to  withdraw 
from  the  clergy  the  support  of  the  State,  they 
looked  about  for  another  support,  and  thought 
that  they  found  it  in  a  revival  of  the  doctrines 
of  Apostolical  Succession  and  Real  Presence. 
This  is  very  distinctly  avowed  by  Newman  in 
the  opening  of  the  "Tracts  for  the  Times."  That 
movement,  however,  was  ecclesiastical  and  theo- 
logical; the  aesthetic  element,  though  distinctly 


58  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

present,  was  not  predominant;  on  Newman  him- 
self and  his  companions  of  the  Oratory  it  had 
comparatively  little  hold.  The  present  move- 
ment, which  pervades  not  only  the  Anglican  and 
medisevalizing  Church,  but  the  churches  gener- 
ally, owes  its  existence,  not  to  theological  specula- 
tion or  to  ecclesiastical  policy,  but  to  the  growth 
of  a  vacuum  in  the  region  of  religious  belief, 
which  music,  art,  flowers,  and  ceremony  are  re- 
quired to  fill.  That  the  beliefs  and  the  religious 
system  of  the  Middle  Ages  can  be  restored  is  an 
idea  with  which  Ritualists,  those  of  the  Anglican 
Church  at  least,  may  play  for  a  time,  but  it  can 
hardly  be  seriously  entertained.  It  is  too  likely 
that  when  the  aesthetic  enchantment  has  lost  its 
power  blank  materialism  will  be  the  end. 

APRIL,  1902. 


XII 

IS  RELIGION  WORTHLESS? 

"  VERUS  "  has  said  that  no  religion  ever 
taught  us  anything  worth  knowing.  What  he 
said  was  true,  if  by  "  worth  knowing "  he  means 
beneficial  in  a  material  sense.  .Yet  it  cannot  be 
denied  that  religion  has  practically  played  a  most 
important  part  in  the  development  of  humanity. 
Religious  ordinance  was  the  form  originally 
assumed  by  social  morality.  A  memorable 
instance  of  this  is  the  religious  legislation 
ascribed  to  Moses,  especially  the  Decalogue. 
But  the  moral  and  social  philosophy  of  Socrates 
and  his  disciples  Plato  and  Xenophon  certainly 
rested  on  religious  belief;  not  in  the  Greek 
pantheon,  but  in  a  supreme  power  that  made 
for  righteousness.  So  did  the  moral  philosophy 
of  the  great  stoics  Marcus  Aurelius  and  Epictetus, 
impersonal  as  their  deity  is. 

Egyptian  morality  appears  to  have  been  in 
form  religious.  More  questionable,  of  course, 

59 


60  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

is  the  influence  of  the  Greek  pantheon,  with  its 
amorous  Zeus  and  its  sensual  Olympus.  Yet 
the  Greek  gods  were  upholders  of  justice.  The 
Delphic  Oracle  in  its  best  day  seems  to  have  been 
an  organ  of  morality.  We  have  the  story  of  a  man 
who,  wishing  to  repudiate  a  deposit,  consulted  the 
Oracle  and  received  an  encouraging  reply.  When, 
having  paid  the  penalty  of  his  crime,  he  reproached 
the  Oracle  with  having  misled  him,  he  was  told 
that  this  was  his  reward  for  the  insult  which  he 
had  offered  to  the  moral  majesty  of  the  god. 

In  the  aesthetic  development  of  man  religion  has 
unquestionably  played  a  great  part.  The  Par- 
thenon and  the  cathedrals,  the  great  painters, 
the  composers  of  sacred  music,  are  religious. 
So  are  Dante  and  Milton.  So  fundamentally  is 
Shakespeare,  though  he  was  probably  a  free 
thinker. 

There  have  been  aberrations  very  many  and 
horrible,  such  as  Moloch-worship  and  the  Inqui- 
sition. But  religion  is  not  to  be  charged  with 
the  crimes  of  worldly  powers  which  have  enslaved 
it  and  abused  its  name. 

Christendom,  whatever  may  become  of  its 
claims  as  a  Revelation,  retains  its  claims  as  a 


IS  RELIGION  WORTHLESS  ?  6 1 

historical  fact  and  an  element  in  the  progress  of 
moral  civilization. 

What  is  the  origin  of  religion?  The  tendency 
appears  to  be  almost  universal,  showing  itself  inde- 
pendently in  every  member  of  the  human  race, 
saving  perhaps  the  very  lowest  savages.  There 
must  be  some  rational  account  of  it,  and  it  is 
difficult  to  see  how  that  account  could  be  found 
in  evolution  or  in  anything  disclosed  by  physical 
science.  Such  an  explanation  of  the  origin  of 
religion  as  the  apparition  of  dead  chieftains  in 
dreams  seems  to  be  totally  inadequate.  Let  us 
be  thoroughly  loyal  to  science  and  embrace  all 
its  real  discoveries,  however  subversive  of  our 
traditions.  But  let  us  ask  for  recognition  of  all 
the  phenomena  of  human  nature,  not  only  those 
which  are  demonstrably  physical,  but  also  those 
which  appear  to  belong  to  another  class. 

May  not  a  man  be  doing  what  is  at  present 
premature  in  absolutely  rejecting  all  religious 
belief  and  cutting  himself  off  from  the  religious 
life  of  the  world?  May  not  the  impetus  of  our 
parting  from  belief  in  the  supernatural  and  the 
dogmatic  carry  us  at  first  too  far? 

AUGUST,  1903. 


XIII 

THE  CRIMES   OF  CHRISTENDOM 

COMMENTING  on  an  arraignment  of  the  Christian 
churches,  the  Sun  said  the  other  day :  — 

If  our  correspondent  will  follow  the  history  of  Chris- 
tianity in  Europe  from  the  time  it  first  gathered  strength 
to  assert  itself  with  physical  force  he  will  read  a  record  of 
war,  persecution,  atrocity  and  fierce  human  passions  in- 
flamed by  religious  enthusiasm  which  is  not  exceeded  if  it 
is  equalled  in  its  darkness  in  the  history  of  any  previous 
religious  propaganda  of  which  we  have  the  record. 

Of  the  crimes  committed  in  the  name  of  Chris- 
tianity it  is  impossible  to  speak  with  too  much 
sorrow  and  abhorrence.  But  the  guilt,  I  submit, 
attaches  not  to  Christianity  itself,  but  to  malig- 
nant influences  under  which  it  has  fallen.  The 
vital  doctrines  of  Christianity  as  preached  by  its 
Founder  are  the  fatherhood  of  God  and  the 
brotherhood  of  man.  Our  faith  in  these  doc- 
trines may  be  failing;  our  faith  in  the  brother- 
hood of  man  would  certainly  appear  to  be  under- 
going eclipse.  But  there  is  nothing  in  them  which 

62 


THE  CRIMES  OF  CHRISTENDOM  63 

could  possibly  lend  itself  to  atrocity  or  persecution. 
When  the  Inquisitor  sought  a  warrant  in  the 
Gospel  for  his  religious  murders,  he  could  find 
nothing  more  to  his  purpose  than  the  words  in 
the  parable  of  the  Great  Feast,  "Compel  them 
[the  guests]  to  come  in,"  or  St.  Paul's  saying,  "I 
would  that  they  were  cut  off  which  trouble  you," 
which  only  the  blindest  bigotry  could  construe 
as  a  longing  for  an  auto-da-fe. 

Islam  propagated  itself  by  the  sword.  Chris- 
tianity in  its  native  character  propagated  itself 
by  the  Word  preached  by  peaceful  missionaries, 
who,  taking  their  lives  in  their  hands,  converted 
the  barbarians  and  founded  the  Christian  nations. 

The  Founder  of  Christianity  said  that  His 
Kingdom  was  not  of  this  world.  Had  that  saying 
been  kept,  there  could  have  been  no  persecutions. 
By  keeping  it  in  after  days  the  Baptist  Church 
has  won  a  distinction  unhappily  almost  unique. 
When  the  Empire,  after  struggling  long  to  ex- 
tinguish Christianity,  bowed  to  it  and  made  it 
the  imperial  religion,  it  extended  its  political 
despotism  over  the  Church.  Orthodoxy,  the 
doctrine  patronized  by  the  court,  became  law, 
heresy  was  treason;  and  there  followed  the 


64  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

inevitable  results.  Ecclesiastics  denied  their 
founder  by  appealing  to  the  secular  arm.  Chris- 
tianity, however,  humanized  the  Roman  law, 
notably  with  regard  to  slavery. 

Special  influence  and  authority  could  not  fail 
to  attach  to  the  bishops  of  the  two  imperial  cities, 
Rome  and  Constantinople;  especially  to  the 
Bishop  of  Rome,  who  was  not  overshadowed  by 
the  presence  of  the  Emperor.  In  the  dissolution 
of  the  Empire,  the  Roman  See  became  a  rallying 
point  for  the  Western  Church.  But  there  was 
really  no  Pope  in  the  present  sense  of  the  term, 
no  spiritual  dictator  claiming  theocratic  and 
universal  authority  over  the  Church,  before 
Hildebrand.  Gregory  the  Great  denounced  the 
title  of  universal  Bishop  as  blasphemous.  Hilde- 
brand it  was  who  created  the  theocratic  despot- 
ism, using  such  instruments  as  Norman  conquest 
and  German  rebellion,  as  well  as  a  clerical  militia 
detached  from  humanity  and  bound  to  the  Papacy 
by  the  enforcement  of  celibacy.  There  is  not  in 
history  a  greater  mockery  than  the  pretence 
of  this  autocrat  and  his  successors,  including 
Innocent  III.,  Alexander  VI.,  and  Julius  II.,  to 
represent  the  preacher  of  the  Sermon  on  the 


THE  CRIMES  OF  CHRISTENDOM  65 

Mount.  Here  we  have  the  main  source  of  per- 
secution and  its  atrocities;  hence  flowed  the 
extermination  of  the  Albigenses,  the  Inquisition, 
Alva's  reign  of  blood  in  the  Netherlands,  the 
Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew,  and  the  Dragon- 
ades.  The  Crusades,  with  any  atrocities  which 
they  may  have  involved,  were  more  the  work  of 
Christendom  at  large,  but  they  can  hardly  be  set 
down  as  persecution;  they  were  rather  a  war 
for  the  defence  of  Christian  civilization  against 
the  on-rolling  tide  of  Mohammedan  conquest, 
that  irruption  of  moral  barbarism,  as  it  is  now 
seen  to  be.  Genuine  Christianity  was  not  left 
without  witnesses.  It  showed  itself  in  such 
characters  as  that  of  Anselm,  in  such  writings  as 
the  "Imitatio  Christi." 

Protestant  Christianity  could  not  at  once  get  clear 
of  the  mediaeval  tradition.  But  presently  it  did. 
It  has  repented  of  its  crimes  and  renounced  perse- 
cution. The  Syllabus,  which  is  the  latest  mani- 
festo of  the  theocratic  Papacy,  reaffirms  the  prin- 
ciple of  intolerance,  throwing  down  the  gaunt- 
let to  modern  civilization  and  to  the  liberty  of 
opinion  which  has  been  won  by  the  struggle  of 
ages  for  humanity.  Infallibility  cannot  repent. 


66  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

The  religious  character  would,  in  any  case, 
no  doubt,  have  shown  its  weak  side.  There 
would  have  been  extravagance,  bigotry,  con- 
troversial heat,  and  rancor;  perhaps  fanatical 
and  sectarian  affray;  but  without  the  influence  of 
the  Empire  and  the  Theocracy  there  could  hardly 
have  been  these  enormous  crimes. 

Catholicism,  as  its  name  imports,  is  univer- 
sal. Papalism  is  Italian.  Only  Italians,  native 
or  naturalized,  can  be  Popes.  The  few  his- 
torical exceptions  are  exceptions  which  prove 
the  rule.  Catholicism,  with  all  its  charac- 
teristics and  graces,  was  fully  developed  before 
Hildebrand.  There  is  nothing  polemically 
Papal  in  the  writings  of  Anselm,  Thomas  a 
Kempis,  or  Pascal.  Lacordaire  and  Montalem- 
bert  were  thoroughly  Catholic,  but  as  friends  of 
liberty,  thinking  that  it  could  be  reconciled  with 
Catholicism,  they  were  disavowed  by  the  Papacy. 
By  Acton,  who  died  Catholic,  the  Papacy  is 
sternly  arraigned. 

I  plead  once  more  for  fair  consideration  of  all 
real  phenomena,  physical  or  moral.  Christianity, 
apart  from  its  entanglements  with  imperial  des- 
potisms and  theocratic  usurpation,  seems,  by  the 


THE  CRIMES  OF  CHRISTENDOM  67 

principles  which  it  has  propagated  and  the  char- 
acters which  it  has  produced,  to  have  been  up  to 
the  present  time  a  great  power,  to  say  the  least, 
of  moral  progress,  and  one  which  is  not  easily 
explained  by  physical  evolution. 

OCTOBER,  1902. 


XIV 

DOES  CHRISTIANITY  FALL  WITH  DOGMA? 

IT  seems  to  be  assumed  in  some  quarters  that 
if  ecclesiastical  dogma  departs,  nothing  of  Chris- 
tianity will  be  left  us.  The  edifice  of  ecclesias- 
tical dogma  is  built  on  belief  in  the  Incarnation 
and  Atonement,  which  again  depends  on  belief 
in  the  Fall  of  Man.  Science  has  apparently  dis- 
proved the  Fall  of  Man,  and  proved  that  man, 
instead  of  falling,  rose,  by  evolution,  from  lower 
organizations.  The  inference  seems  irresistible 
and  fatal  to  dogmatic  Christianity.  But  does 
this  reduce  Christianity  to  an  ethical  speculation, 
one  of  a  number  of  the  same  kind? 

The  essence  of  Christianity  as  it  came  from  the 
lips  of  the  Author  seems  to  be  belief  in  the  father- 
hood of  God  and  the  brotherhood  of  man.  Trace 
the  practical  effect  of  this  belief  through  the  cen- 
turies, disengaging  it  as  well  as  you  can  from 
ecclesiastical  superfetations,  from  the  effects  of 
fellowship  with  evil  powers  of  the  world,  from 

68 


DOES  CHRISTIANITY  FALL  WITH  DOGMA  ?          69 

the  crimes  of  theocracy,  and  from  the  fanaticism 
of  sects.  Does  it  not  appear  wherever  it  has 
prevailed,  under  whatever  form  and  in  whatever 
circumstances,  in  all  nations  and  in  all  states  of 
life,  to  have  produced  in  those  who  strove  to  live 
up  to  its  excellence  and  beneficence  of  character, 
spiritual  happiness,  with  an  inward  assurance 
that  it  would  be  well  for  them  in  the  end?  In 
that  case  may  not  Christianity  fairly  present  itself 
as  something  more  than  an  ethical  speculation? 
May  it  not  claim  to  rank  in  some  degree  as  a  right 
solution  of  the  problem  of  humanity  and  a  prac- 
tical experiment  which  has  not  failed? 

It  is  said  that  in  the  struggle  of  righteous- 
ness and  mercy  against  might,  those  who  have 
borne  themselves  best  upon  the  side  of  that  which 
Christians  claim  as  Christian  principle,  have  in 
many  cases  not  been  Christians.  This  is  true, 
as  it  is  true  also  that  some  Christian  churches 
have  taken  that  which  seems  to  be  ethically  the 
anti-Christian  side.  But  have  these  men,  in 
discarding  Christian  profession,  discarded  belief 
in  that  which  is  the  essence  of  Christianity  ?  Have 
they  renounced  belief  in  the  brotherhood  of  man  ? 
May  it  not  be  said  that  Comte's  Great  Being  of 


70  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

Humanity  is  Christ's  brotherhood  of  man  under 
another  name?  Belief  in  God  may  have  been 
renounced,  yet  to  warrant  belief  in  a  brother- 
hood of  man  there  must  surely  be  some  paternal 
and  consecrating  power. 

To  demonstrate  that  Christianity  cannot  stand 
as  a  philosophy  of  the  conduct  of  life  without 
the  support  of  dogma,  are  cited  extreme  pas- 
sages in  the  Gospel  against  carefulness  for  riches 
and  the  things  of  this  world,  with  the  remark 
that  "so  far  from  there  being  practical  unanimity 
in  accepting  this  philosophy  of  the  conduct  of 
life,  there  is  practically  unanimity  in  repudiating 
it."  Beyond  doubt  the  passages  are  in  expression 
hyperbolical.  They  are  the  language,  as  those 
who  have  rejected  supernaturalism  believe,  of 
a  carpenter's  son  who  spoke  to  the  heart  rather 
than  to  the  philosophic  mind,  who  had  been  bred 
in  no  school  of  philosophy  and  was  untrained  to 
the  strict  use  of  language.  Beyond  doubt  their 
hyperbolical  form  has  told  against  their  prac- 
tical effect.  But,  after  all,  the  gist  of  them  is 
"keep  your  heart  above  wealth  and  devotion  to 
its  increase."  Has  not  this  been  practised,  with- 
out detriment  to  industry,  by  men  even  in  the 


DOES  CHRISTIANITY  FALL  WITH  DOGMA?         71 

mart  or  on  the  Stock  Exchange,  and  have  they 
not  found  that  self -approval  and  moral  happiness 
were  the  result? 

It  was  rather  surprising  to  hear  a  doubt  ex- 
pressed, as  it  was  the  other  day,  by  a  scientific 
man  as  to  the  effect  of  the  progress  of  science 
on  human  happiness.  As  to  the  effect  of  scien- 
tific discovery  on  our  material  well-being  and 
everything  that  directly  depends  on  it  there  can 
be  no  doubt  whatever,  though  querulous  old  age 
may  sometimes  be  found  looking  back  wistfully 
to  the  restfulness  of  the  days  before  the  electric 
telegraph,  the  ocean  greyhound,  and  the  automo- 
bile. Nor,  if  it  is  the  effect  of  scientific  discovery 
on  our  religious  faith  that  is  meant,  can  there  be 
any  doubt  that  knowledge  of  our  nature  and 
destiny,  however  unwelcome  and  lowering  in 
itself,  is  better  than  ignorance  and  infinitely 
better  than  falsehood.  Let  science  prove  that 
man  is  merely  a  physical  development  of  the 
ape  or  earthworm,  and  that  with  his  present 
life  all  ends;  we  will  accept  the  proof,  though 
there  may  be  little  comfort  in  the  materialist's 
exhortation  to  make  the  best  of  this  life  and  look 
forward  with  complacency  to  our  eternal  sleep, 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 


72  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

the  life  perhaps  being  that  of  a  galley-slave, 
while  eternal  sleep  is  a  pleasant  name  for  anni- 
hilation. But  the  conviction  cannot  be  said  to 
enhance  the  dignity  or  conduce  to  the  happiness 
of  man;  apparently  it  will  hardly  conduce  to 
morality,  personal  or  social.  Before  accepting 
it  we  once  more  crave  a  full  examination  of  all 
real  phenomena.  Physical  science  itself  is  still 
advancing,  and  there  may  be  Darwins  after 
Darwin. 

JANUARY,  1904. 


XV 

SABATIER  ON  RELIGIONS  OF  AUTHORITY 

MOMENTOUS  is  this  crisis  in  the  history  of 
man  if  all  authoritative  religion,  all  consecrated 
tradition,  fails  him,  and  he  is  left  to  work  out  by 
his  own  reason  the  problem  of  his  origin,  state, 
and  destiny.  With  the  religions  of  authority 
would  pass  away  the  whole  order  of  spiritual 
guides,  leaving,  as  the  departure  of  the  clergy 
certainly  would,  an  incalculable  void,  not  only 
in  our  theological,  but  in  our  moral  and  social 
system.  To  such  a  crisis,  however,  according 
to  M.  Sabatier's  work  on  "Religions  of  Author- 
ity, "  we  have  come. 

The  days  of  all  the  religions  of  authority, 
in  M.  Sabatier's  opinion,  are  numbered.  He 
appears  to  think  that  the  Papacy  is  likely  to  last 
the  longest.  It  has  a  wonderfully  strong  organi- 
zation, an  imposing  and  fascinating  ritual,  a 
legendary  antiquity  founded  on  a  mythical  list 
of  early  Popes.  It  still  commands  the  allegiance 

73 


74  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

of  masses  like  the  Italian  peasantry,  who  can 
believe  in  the  miracle  of  St.  Januarius  and  the 
Holy  House  of  Loretto,  or  the  crowds  of  pilgrims 
to  Lourdes.  Of  highly  educated  adherents  it 
retains  comparatively  few,  of  scientific  adherents 
almost  none.  It  offers  in  these  times  of  religious 
confusion  and  perplexity  a  tempting  haven  to 
the  weak  and  doubting  mind.  It  has  in  its  own 
despite  gained  in  spiritual  character  and  re- 
spectability by  severance  from  the  temporal 
power.  As  an  an ti- revolutionary  influence  it  is 
rather  regarded  with  complacency  by  the  conser- 
vative statesmen  of  Europe.  Guizot  seemed  to 
have  this  feeling  about  it.  But  now,  loaded 
with  its  burden  of  historical  memories,  it  is 
going  into  its  last  struggle  against  reason  and 
progress.  In  its  Syllabus  it  bids  defiance  to  liberty 
of  conscience  and  of  opinion,  to  the  right  of  the 
State,  to  the  cardinal  principles  of  modern  civili- 
zation. Civilization  takes  up  the  glove. 

That  the  Papacy  is  not  the  whole  of  the  Catho- 
lic Church  we  have  a  reminder  in  another  religion 
of  authority,  with  which  M.  Sabatier  does  not  deal. 
The  Eastern  Church,  now  mainly  represented 
by  the  State  Church  of  Russia,  has  all  along 


SABATIER  ON  RELIGIONS  OF  AUTHORITY  75 

remained  separate  from  that  which  is  represented 
by  the  Papacy,  in  spite  of  an  enforced,  transitory, 
and  nugatory  act  of  submission.  In  this  case  the 
authority  is  largely  national,  the  union  of  Church 
and  State  in  Russia  being  complete,  so  that  the 
Procurator  of  the  Holy  Synod  is  a  very  important 
Minister  of  State.  The  Church  is  Holy  Russia, 
and  Holy  Russia  is  the  Church.  The  immobility 
of  the  system  verges  on  torpor.  Naturally  those 
who  break  away  from  it  break  away  with  a  ven- 
geance. The  orthodoxy  of  Pobyedonostseff  gives 
birth  to  heterodoxy  in  Tolstoi.  Here  also  the 
incipient  forces  of  dissolution  may  be  seen. 

Yet  another  religion  of  authority  unnoticed  by 
M.  Sabatier  is  Anglicanism,  the  religion  of  the 
State  Church  of  England.  A  State  Church  that 
of  England  is,  in  the  fullest  sense  of  the  term. 
Its  doctrines  and  ritual  are  an  amalgam  of  the 
personal  bias  of  Henry  VIII.,  who  died  half  a 
Catholic  though  in  revolt  against  the  Papacy, 
with  the  policy  of  his  executors,  a  new  aristoc- 
racy looking  for  support  to  the  party  of  progress 
against  the  ancient  nobility,  and  with  the 
policy  of  the  opportunist  statesmen  of  Elizabeth, 
one  of  theological  compromise.  In  the  history 


76  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

of  the  Church  of  England  the  several  elements 
of  its  composition  predominate  in  turn:  first  the 
Genevan,  which  gives  birth  to  the  Lambeth 
Articles  and  the  delegation  to  the  Calvinistic 
Synod  of  Dort;  then,  under  Laud,  the  Catholic; 
again,  after  a  long  period  almost  of  torpor,  the 
Evangelical;  and  now  once  more,  in  a  large 
section  of  the  clergy,  the  Catholic,  though  a  small 
section  is  rationalist.  The  authority  in  this  case 
is  the  Parliament,  which  originally  settled  the 
system  without  any  real  regard  to  Convocation, 
but  in  those  times  was  itself  Anglican,  whereas 
it  is  now  made  up  of  men  of  all  religions  and  of 
none.  Such  a  state  of  things,  if  the  Church  of 
England  is  a  spiritual  body,  cannot  last  long. 
She  may  be  forced  to  break  her  political  bonds, 
and  dogmatic  dissolution  could  hardly  fail  to 
ensue. 

Practically  the  most  important  of  the  subjects 
with  which  M.  Sabatier  deals  is  the  Protestant 
authority,  that  of  the  Bible.  He  seems  fully  to 
embrace  the  judgments  of  criticism,  literary  and 
historical :  — 

"In  what  condition  do  we  actually  find  the  text  of  the 
Old  Testament  Scriptures  ?  Instead  of  the  homogeneity 


SABATIER  ON  RELIGIONS  OF  AUTHORITY  77 

formerly  attributed  to  them,  we  find  in  the  historic  books 
a  fabric  woven  of  documents  yet  more  ancient,  whose  vari- 
colored threads  are  easily  distinguishable,  making  clear 
that  the  Pentateuch  and  the  books  of  Joshua,  Judges, 
Samuel,  and  Kings  assumed  their  present  form  at  a  very 
late  date.  Furthermore,  what  a  medley  of  disarrange- 
ment do  we  find  in  the  prophecies  of  Isaiah,  Zechariah, 
and  Jeremiah,  to  speak  only  of  those  whose  want  of  con- 
nection is  visible  to  the  unaided  eye !  What  is  the  book 
of  Psalms,  if  not  the  Psalter  of  the  Jewish  synagogue, 
made  up  of  hymns  of  very  different  periods,  already  gath- 
ered into  earlier  collections?  What  shall  we  say  under 
this  head  of  Proverbs  and  the  entire  Solomonic  literature, 
offshoots  of  which  are  found  down  to  the  second  century 
before  our  era?'*  (p.  236.) 

M.  Sabatier  abandons  in  plain  terms  the  super- 
natural notion  of  the  Bible  and  confesses  that  it 
is  no  longer  the  infallible  rule  of  religious  thought, 
the  oracle  of  absolute  and  eternal  truth.  Yet 
he  treats  it  still  as  the  great  aliment  and  support 
of  spiritual  life.  He  says  that  it  "  continues 
to  discharge  a  double  and  essential  function  in 
the  life  of  churches,  families,  and  individuals; 
that  it  is  no  longer  a  code,  but  remains  a  testimony; 
is  no  longer  a  law,  but  is  a  means  of  grace ;  does 
not  prescribe  the  scientific  formulas  of  faith, 
but  does  remain  the  historic  fountain  of  Christian 


78  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

knowledge."  Luther,  he  says,  and  Calvin,  used 
the  Bible  freely  as  spiritual  food  without  bibli- 
olatry ;  Luther  disparaging  the  Epistle  of  James, 
Calvin  looking  askance  on  the  Apocalypse.  To 
which  it  might  be  replied,  in  the  first  place, 
that  Luther  and  Calvin  brought  with  them  con- 
firmed convictions  from  their  previous  religious 
state;  in  the  second  place,  that  they  were  not 
common  men.  Simple  souls  can  hardly  be  ex- 
pected to  make  use  of  a  great  course  of  literature 
as  food  for  spiritual  appetite  developed  within 
themselves,  injecting  into  it  their  personal  thoughts 
and  emotion.  They  crave  for  authority,  or  at 
least  a  positive  rule  such  as  they  thought  they 
had  in  the  Bible,  believing  it  to  be  throughout  the 
inspired  Word  of  God. 

How,  after  the  admissions  which  M.  Sabatier 
has  made,  can  he  continue  to  speak  of  "the  Bible" 
at  all?  How  can  he  persevere  in  treating  as  a 
book  that  which  is  in  fact  a  collection  of  books, 
independent  of  each  other,  and  varying  greatly 
in  character,  spirit,  and  value?  The  Old  Testa- 
ment is  the  whole  of  ancient  Hebrew  literature 
bound  up  together.  The  idea  of  God  differs 
materially  in  different  parts  of  it.  The  God  of 


SABATIER  ON   RELIGIONS  OF  AUTHORITY  79 

Genesis  is  anthropomorphic,  and  the  special  deity 
of  a  patriarchal  family.  The  God  of  Exodus, 
Joshua,  and  Judges  is  intensely  tribal,  sanctioning 
in  the  interest  of  the  tribe  wholesale  massacre, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  Canaanites;  treason,  as  in 
the  case  of  Rahab ;  assassination,  as  in  the  case  of 
Sisera;  inflicting  plagues  upon  all  the  Egyptians 
to  make  Pharaoh  let  the  favored  tribe  go.  This 
deity  and  the  deity  who  makes  Balaam's  ass 
speak,  who  sends  a  lying  spirit  to  Ahab,  who 
makes  bears  kill  a  party  of  boys  for  mocking 
Elisha,  is  a  conception  surely  lower  than  that 
of  Deity  in  the  second  Isaiah,  in  Amos,  in  the 
more  spiritual  Psalms.  The  Psalms  are  mani- 
festly by  different  hands.  The  spirit  of  some 
of  them  is  gentle  and  beautiful.  That  of  others 
is  the  reverse. 

An  attempt  has  been  made  to  impart  unity  to 
the  collection  and  at  the  same  time  to  explain 
away  its  moral  difficulties  and  give  it  as  a  whole 
the  character  of  a  progressive  revelation  by  the 
help  of  that  universal  key,  the  principle  of  evolu- 
tion. But  no  process  of  evolution  can  really  be 
discerned.  In  the  latest  books  of  the  series, 
those  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  there  reigns  the 


80  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

narrowest  tribalism,  a  tribalism  which  commands 
the  Hebrew  to  put  away  his  Gentile  wife.  Of 
the  book  of  Esther  it  is  only  necessary  to  say  that 
it  is  the  source  of  the  feast  of  Purim. 

If  the  Hebrew  literature  is  divested  of  the 
character  of  revelation,  is  it  so  immeasur- 
ably higher,  morally  and  spiritually,  than  the 
Greek?  The  Greek  pantheon,  of  course,  is 
morally  low,  though  sunny  and  inspiring  to  art. 
But  the  deity  of  Socrates,  though  indistinct  and 
hardly  personal,  is  sublimely  moral.  In  the 
Hebrew  literature  there  is,  on  the  whole,  not 
much  of  tenderness  or  affection.  We  have  Ruth, 
it  is  true,  we  have  the  friendship  of  David  and 
Jonathan,  and  some  other  touches  of  humanity. 
But  there  is  no  parting  of  Hector  and  Andromache. 
There  is  no  Antigone  or  Alcestis.  There  is  nothing 
like  the  sentiment  of  the  Greek  epitaph  in  which 
the  dead  wife  says  that  of  the  two  babes  which 
she  bore  her  husband,  one  she  keeps  with  her  as 
the  pledge  of  his  love,  and  the  other  she  has  left 
to  be  the  prop  of  his  old  age.  Sternness,  amount- 
ing often  to  grimness,  seems  to  be  the  general  tone 
of  the  Old  Testament. 

Then,  upon  what  principle  would  M.  Sabatier 


SABATIER  ON   RELIGIONS  OF  AUTHORITY  8 1 

say,  if  belief  in  a  supernatural  revelation  is  to  be 
discarded,  are  we  to  bind  up  the  New  Testament 
with  the  Old?  The  Deity  and  the  religion  of 
the  Old  Testament  are  tribal,  and  tribal  they  re- 
main to  the  last.  The  God  of  the  Chosen  People 
might  be  destined  to  extend  his  sway  over  all  the 
nations  of  the  earth;  but  he  would  still  be  the 
God  of  the  Chosen  People.  The  God  of  the  New 
Testament  is  the  equal  Father  of  all.  The  son 
of  the  carpenter  at  Nazareth  would,  of  course, 
accept  uncritically  the  sacred  books  of  his  nation 
with  their  traditional  interpretations.  But  it 
was  not  from  the  narrative  of  the  plagues  of  Egypt 
or  of  the  slaughter  of  the  Canaanites  that  he 
drew  his  ideas  of  the  fatherhood  of  God  and  the 
brotherhood  of  man.  If  the  religion  of  the  New 
Testament  owed  its  birth  to  that  of  the  Old 
Testament,  it  was  by  repulsion  as  well  as  by  pro- 
duction. Of  the  prophecies  of  Jesus  in  the  Old 
Testament,  criticism  has  entirely  disposed.  The 
bigots  of  the  Old  Testament  crucified  the  Teacher 
of  the  New.  Nothing  is  more  dear  or  familiar 
to  us  than  the  Bible  as  it  is.  Great  indeed  would 
be  the  wrench  of  parting  with  it.  Yet  nothing 
surely  can  be  less  rational  than  a  volume  in  which 


82  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

certain  portions  of  Hebrew  history  and  literature 
are  bound  up  as  identical  in  source  and  spirit 
with  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 

For  my  own  part,  I  should  prefer  to  rest  the 
claims  of  Christianity  to  serious  and  unimpassioned 
consideration  no  more  on  anything  mystical  or 
esoteric  than  on  anything  supernatural,  but  rather 
on  the  evidence  of  the  character,  moral  and  social, 
which  Christianity  has  produced,  and  the  relation 
of  that  character  to  the  progress  of  humanity. 
These  are  facts  not  less  certain  in  their  way 
than  any  that  can  be  submitted  to  the  investiga- 
tion of  science. 

MARCH,  1904. 


XVI 

THE  TENDENCIES  OF  RELIGIOUS  THOUGHT 

SINCE  Sabatier's  work  foreshadowing  the  de- 
cline of  religious  authority  was  noticed  in  the 
Sun,  a  movement  has  been  on  foot  in  Canada 
tending  in  the  direction  which  it  was  then  suggested 
that  religious  progress  would  be  likely  to  take. 
It  had  its  origin  in  Toronto,  but  its  most  congenial 
scene  appears  to  be  our  Canadian  Northwest, 
where  everything  is]  new,  a  population,  being 
immigrant,  is  less  bound  by  old  ties,  secular  or 
religious,  and  the  futility  of  dogmatic  division 
is  most  apparent;  where,  moreover,  the  incon- 
venience of  maintaining  three  churches  for  one 
congregation  must  be  specially  felt.  It  is  proposed, 
and  the  proposal  seems  strongly  supported,  to 
unite  the  Presbyterian,  Methodist,  and  Congrega- 
tional churches.  The  union  is  not  to  be  one  merely 
of  pulpits  and  good  works,  but  organic.  As 
between  the  Methodists  and  Congregationalists, 
there  would  be  little  to  sacrifice  on  either  side 

83 


84  IN  QUEST   OF  LIGHT 

in  the  way  of  doctrine;  there  would  be  more 
between  the  Presbyterians  and  the  other  two 
classes,  unless  the  Presbyterians  have  radically 
modified  the  Westminster  Confession.  The  Con- 
gregationalists  would  have  to  sacrifice  their  theory 
of  church  government.  Fusion  of  organizations, 
with  their  vested  interests,  might  be  more  difficult 
than  the  fusion  of  doctrines.  Perhaps  the  fusion 
of  names  might  be  most  difficult  of  all.  A  fear 
has  suggested  itself  that  the  result,  instead  of  being 
an  advance  in  liberalism,  might  be  a  consolidation 
of  dogma  on  a  large  scale.  But  this  seems  unlikely. 
Sectarian  bulwarks  having  once  given  way,  the 
result  probably  would  be  an  approach  to  a  church 
of  ethical,  spiritual,  and  social  brotherhood  on 
Christian  lines  such  as  the  Protestant  churches 
are  apparently  tending  to  be. 

I  was  sure  to  receive  proofs  of  the  impatience 
with  which  thorough-going  materialists,  elated 
by  the  grand  discovery  of  evolution,  regard  those 
who  hesitate  to  embrace  at  once  the  full  mate- 
rialist creed  and  say  with  its  chief  living  exposi- 
tor that  the  three  great  obstacles  to  our  well- 
being  are  the  beliefs  in  God,  Free  Will,  and  a 
Future  Life.  For  my  part,  I  have  unfeignedly 


THE  TENDENCIES  OF  RELIGIOUS  THOUGHT        8$ 

professed  my  loyalty  to  Science.  I  heartily  accept 
evolution,  only  pausing  to  see  whether  a  discovery 
so  recent  as  well  as  momentous  has  yet  found  its 
final  level.  I  only  ask  that  certain  phenomena 
of  human  nature,  its  liberty  of  choice  in  action, 
its  moral  aspirations,  its  power  of  idealization,  its 
finer  affections,  its  sense  of  spiritual  beauty,  its 
conception  of  the  fatherhood  of  God  and  the 
brotherhood  of  man,  all  in  fact  that  constitutes 
what  we  have  regarded  as  spiritual  life,  should 
receive  fair  consideration,  and  that  we  should  be 
told  whether  these  phenomena  can  be  explained 
by  evolution  or  by  any  process  of  material  de- 
velopment. I  hesitate  also  to  admit  the  assump- 
tion that  the  evidence  of  our  five  senses,  even 
with  all  our  scientific  aids,  is  a  complete  account 
of  the  universe,  so  as  to  shut  out  any  indication 
that  there  may  be  in  our  nature  of  something  be- 
yond. Truth,  welcome  or  unwelcome,  we  must 
embrace.  In  embracing  it  is  our  only  salvation. 
But  it  is  too  much  to  say  that  proof  of  the  mate- 
rialist theory  would  be  welcome.  The  theory 
means  annihilation  after  a  life  as  transitory  as 
that  of  an  insect;  less  jocund,  it  is  to  be  feared, 
than  that  of  an  insect  in  the  case  of  a  very  large 


86  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

proportion  of  our  race.  Positivism  seeks  to  con- 
sole us  with  an  attractive  formulary  setting  forth 
the  cooperation  of  successive  generations  in  the 
furtherance  of  human  progress.  What  interest 
can  any  generation  have  in  a  progress  of  which 
it  will  not  personally  partake  or  even  be  conscious  ? 
Besides,  in  what  is  the  progress  to  end?  Science 
says,  in  a  physical  catastrophe. 

Not  less  fully  do  I  accept  the  judgments  of 
criticism  on  the  authenticity  of  the  Gospel  narra- 
tives and  the  mythical  element  which  they  unques- 
tionably contain.  With  the  supernatural  and 
miraculous,  with  what  has  hitherto  been  called 
revelation,  we  must  evidently  part.  But  the 
Character  which  has  formed  the  Christian  Ideal 
still  remains.  It  is  not  only  pictured  in  the  Gos- 
pels, but  reflected  in  the  genuine  writings  of  Paul. 
There  remains  also  the  doctrine  to  which  Paul 
was  a  convert  and  which  was  preached  with  signal 
success  by  him.  There  remains  the  effect  of 
that  doctrine  on  the  history  of  the  civilized  world. 
Loaded  and  sullied  though  Christianity  has  been 
by  alliances  with  secular  powers,  theocratic  usurpa- 
tion, dogmatic  bigotry,  and  sectarian  strife,  what 
moral  influence  can  be  traced  in  the  progress 


THE  TENDENCIES  OF  RELIGIOUS  THOUGHT          8? 

of  humanity  comparable  to  that  of  the  belief 
in  the  fatherhood  of  God  and  the  brotherhood 
of  man?  There  is  surely  nothing  superstitious 
or  reactionary  in  the  recognition  of  experience 
embodied  in  the  great  facts  of  history. 

APRIL,  1904. 


XVII 

THE  BIBLE:   ITS  CRITICS  AND  ITS  DEFENDERS 

WE  learn  from  the  Sun  that  orthodoxy  under 
the  very  eminent  leadership  of  Dr.  Patton  is 
confronting  heterodoxy  on  a  decisive  field  in 
defence  of  the  "full  inspiration  and  supreme 
authority  of  the  Bible  as  the  word  of  God."  It 
will  be  a  momentous  encounter.  What  are  all 
our  political  questions  compared  with  the  question 
whether  we  have  or  have  not  the  divinely  inspired 
word  of  life? 

Those  whose  opinions  I  share  will  be  inclined 
to  demur  to  the  use  in  a  critical  discussion  of 
the  term  "Bible,"  dear  and  familiar  as  that  term 
may  be.  The  founder  of  Christianity,  a  humble 
Galilean,  naturally  received  with  uncritical  sim- 
plicity the  sacred  books  and  traditions  of  his 
nation.  He  accepted  as  historical  the  story  of 
Jonah,  and  saw  in  the  appellation  of  Jehovah  as 
the  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  a  proof 
that  those  patriarchs  still  lived.  But  Pharisaism 

88 


THE  BIBLE :   ITS  CRITICS  AND   ITS   DEFENDERS     89 

obeyed  its  instincts  in  crucifying  the  Founder 
of  Christianity.  The  Anglican  Articles  say  "the 
Old  Testament  is  not  contrary  to  the  New." 
In  some  parts  it  is  anticipative ;  but  what  can  be 
more  contrary  to  the  brotherhood  of  man  than 
the  order  to  smite  the  Canaanites  and  utterly 
destroy  them?  What  can  be  more  contrary  to 
the  Christian  rule  of  marriage  than  is  the  in- 
junction of  Ezra  to  the  Jews  to  put  away  their 
Gentile  wives?  The  God  of  the  Old  Testament 
to  the  last  is  tribal,  though  he  is  supreme  over 
the  gods  of  all  the  other  nations  and  will  some 
day  make  his  tribe  and  worship  supreme.  The 
God  of  the  New  Testament  is  universal. 

It  is  time  that  we  should  frankly  treat  as  primi- 
tive the  Old  Testament  stories  of  the  Creation 
and  the  Deluge,  which  distinctly  clash  with  the 
true  revelation  of  science.  They  ought  no  longer 
to  be  taught  to  children.  I  recollect  the  ignomini- 
ous struggles  of  a  great  geologist,  whose  lectures 
I  attended  in  my  youth,  to  reconcile  scientific  fact 
with  established  and  consecrated  belief. 

The  Old  Testament  has  its  sublimities,  its 
beauties,  its  passages  of  advanced  morality,  both 
personal  and  social.  In  virtue  of  these  it  must 


go  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

always  hold  its  ground.  The  Mosaic  law, 
whatever  may  be  the  date  of  its  redaction, 
belongs  in  its  character  to  a  primitive  era,  and 
for  that  era  is  a  notable  advance  in  civiliza- 
tion. Recognizing  primitive  customs,  it  improves 
on  them.  It  distinguishes  wilful  murder  from 
accidental  homicide,  and  confines  to  wilful  mur- 
der the  function  of  the  avenger  of  blood.  It 
forbids  the  taking  of  money  as  a  satisfaction  for 
blood,  which  was  the  general  custom  of  primitive 
mankind.  It  condemns  the  hereditary  blood 
feud.  By  providing  judges  and  calling  on  the 
congregation  to  judge  between  the  slayer  and 
the  avenger  of  blood,  it  puts  private  revenge  under 
the  control  of  public  law.  It  limits  the  evil 
privilege  of  asylum.  It  limits  paternal  despotism, 
which  among  the  Romans  was  unlimited,  requir- 
ing a  public  process  and  the  concurrence  of  the 
mother  in  the  execution  of  the  rebellious  child. 
Recognizing  polygamy,  as  in  those  days  was 
inevitable,  it  guards  against  the  evil  jealousies 
and  partialities  of  the  harem.  It  even  mitigates 
in  some  measure  the  barbarous  laws  of  war,  re- 
quiring that  a  garrison  shall  be  regularly  summoned, 
and  forbidding  the  cutting  down  of  the  fruit  trees, 


THE  BIBLE:   ITS  CRITICS  AND  ITS  DEFENDERS    91 

the  permanent  wealth  of  the  country,  which  was 
regularly  practised  by  the  Greeks.  It  extends 
a  measure  of  protection  to  the  feelings  of  captive 
women.  It  is  singularly  free  from  militarism, 
making  no  provision  for  a  standing  army,  even 
foregoing  forced  service  in  war,  and  treating 
"peace  in  all  your  borders"  as  the  highest  bless- 
ing. It  recognizes  slavery,  then  universal,  but 
mercifully  interposes  to  some  extent  between  the 
master  and  the  slave.  It  however  betrays  its 
human  origin  in  ordaining  death  for  witchcraft. 
Nor  can  mere  improvements  on  the  tribal  system, 
though  remarkable  and  even  wonderful,  be  said 
clearly  to  bespeak  the  intervention  of  God. 

The  Decalogue  is  very  high  morality  for  its 
day,  as  the  continuance  of  its  authority  has  proved, 
though  its  allusion  to  the  Creation  shows  that  it 
was  not  inspired  by  the  Maker  of  the  world. 
The  Sabbath,  while  in  its  Jewish  form  it  belongs 
to  the  past,  has  glided  with  rational  modification 
into  our  inestimable  Day  of  Rest. 

If  the  grandeurs  and  beauties  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment are  apparent,  its  weaknesses  cannot  well 
be  concealed.  Who  can  pretend  to  admire  all 
the  ecstatic  utterances  of  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel? 


92  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

The  book  of  Job  has  been  lauded  beyond  measure. 
It  has  striking  passages,  and  its  theme  is  one  of 
the  deepest  interest.  But  it  signally  fails  to  solve 
its  problem,  the  compatibility  of  the  sufferings  of 
good  men  with  the  providence  of  God.  Socrates, 
as  reflected  in  Plato,  is  here  clearly  above  Job. 

Some  passages  in  the  Old  Testament  which 
are  instinct  with  tribal  cruelty  and  pander  to  the 
war  spirit  have  borne  very  bitter  fruit.  A  plea 
has  been  entered  for  the  retention  of  these  as 
congenial  to  a  particular  class  of  converts.  It 
was  for  that  very  reason  that  Ulfilas,  the  apostle 
of  the  Goths,  left  the  book  of  Kings  out  of  his 
translation  of  the  Scriptures. 

Inspiration  must  be  universal  or  none.  We 
are  not  warranted  in  picking  out  certain  passages 
and  pronouncing  them  divine  while  the  rest  are 
human.  A  single  error  or  immorality  is  fatal 
to  the  divine  origin  of  the  whole.  That  a  divine 
Being  should  err  or  mislead  is  inconceivable. 
Not  less  inconceivable  is  it  that  he  should  have 
subjected  himself  in  his  operations  to  such  a 
law  as  evolution,  and  then  waited  for  Darwin  to 
explain  the  dispensation  to  mankind. 

Inspiration  has  not  been  defined,  nor  does  it 


THE  BIBLE:    ITS  CRITICS  AND   ITS  DEFENDERS    93 

seem  that  any  distinct  idea  has  ever  been  formed 
of  the  process.  How  was  the  divine  mind  com- 
municated to  the  writer?  By  what  signs  or  con- 
sciousness was  the  writer  assured  that  he  had 
become  the  penman  of  the  Almighty  and  was 
authorized  in  that  character  to  claim  the  trust  and 
obedience  of  the  world? 

It  seems  to  follow  that  the  Old  Testament 
ought  not  to  be  bound  up  with  the  New  as  the 
record  of  a  continuous  revelation,  hard  as  it  will 
be  to  dissolve  the  union  between  the  two  parts 
of  our  family  Bible. 

The  value  of  the  New  Testament,  to  a  rational- 
ist, does  not  depend  on  the  proof  of  apostolic  or 
contemporary  authorship,  on  the  credibility  of  the 
miraculous  parts  of  the  narrative,  or  on  anything 
that  the  higher  criticism  has  swept  or  is  sweeping 
away.  It  rests  on  the  Character  unmistakably 
portrayed,  and  on  the  doctrines  which  unques- 
tionably gave  birth  to  Christendom. 

MAY,  1904. 


XVIII 

IS    CHRISTIANITY   DEAD   OR   DYING  ? 

WHEN  it  is  said  that  Christianity  since  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  has  been  dead 
or  dying,  we  must  ask  what  is  meant  by  Chris- 
tianity. If  what  is  meant  is  belief  in  the  super- 
natural inspiration  of  the  Bible,  in  miracles,  in 
the  creeds,  Christianity  unquestionably  is  dead 
or  dying  in  critical  minds.  The  miracles,  we  see, 
were  a  halo  which  gathered  round  the  head  of 
the  Founder,  superior  to  other  such  halos  in  that 
they  are  miracles  of  mercy,  not  of  power.  But 
the  doctrine  which  is  the  vital  essence  of  Chris- 
tianity, belief  in  the  fatherhood  of  God  and  the 
brotherhood  of  man,  seems  not  yet  to  be  dead 
or  certainly  dying. 

During  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century 
spiritual  life  was  at  a  low  ebb,  the  main  cause  be- 
ing the  tyranny  or  torpor  of  established  Churches. 
That  was  the  day  of  Voltaire.  But  towards  the 
end  of  the  century  there  was  a  great  revival.  In 

94 


IS  CHRISTIANITY  DEAD  OR  DYING?  95 

England  there  was  outside  the  Establishment 
the  Methodist  movement  under  Wesley;  inside 
the  Establishment  there  was  the  evangelical 
movement,  which  had  Christians  of  eminence  at 
its  head.  From  the  religious  zeal  thus  awakened, 
besides  a  moral  and  social  reform,  sprang  great 
religious  enterprises,  missionary  and  philanthropic. 
The  movement  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  and 
those  for  the  redemption  of  suffering  classes  in 
England  were  Christian  in  spirit  and  were  led  by 
Lord  Shaftesbury  and  other  religious  men. 

The  Reformation  itself  was  a  revival,  and  a 
revival  not  only  from  torpor  and  seeming  death, 
but  from  depravation  apparently  the  most  fatal, 
from  the  Papacy  of  the  Borgias  and  the  reign  of 
the  Inquisition.  Has  polytheism,  Buddhism,  or 
Islam  ever  shown  its  inherent  vitality  by  a  similar 
revival  ? 

The  preaching  of  the  Founder  of  Christendom, 
who  taught  the  fatherhood  of  God  and  the  brother- 
hood of  man,  undeniably  was  the  great  awakening 
of  spiritual  life  in  the  world.  A  world  without 
spiritual  life,  or  religion  as  the  embodiment  of 
that  life,  and  regulated  by  social  science  solely 
in  temporal  interests,  is  perfectly  conceivable. 


96  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

But  the  religion  which  should  take  the  place  of 
vital  Christianity  is  not.  Renan  says  of  the 
words  addressed  to  the  woman  of  Samaria  that 
they  are  the  essence  of  religion,  and  that  if  there 
are  intelligent  beings  in  other  planets  and  they  are 
religious,  this  and  none  other  their  religion  must  be. 

The  revelations  of  the  physical  world  come  to 
us  through  the  action  of  high  scientific  intellects. 
Was  it  not  possible  that  a  revelation  of  the  moral 
world  should  come  to  us  through  a  character  of 
unique  excellence,  benevolence,  and  beauty,  pre- 
served in  its  simplicity  and  purity  by  the  pastoral 
isolation  of  Galilee? 

The  Positivist  points  triumphantly  to  the  self- 
devotion  of  the  Japanese  sacrificing  themselves 
for  their  country  though  they  have,  as  he  assumes, 
no  religion.  Is  the  diagnosis  quite  correct? 
When  the  Japanese  rips  himself  up  rather  than 
surrender,  what  is  his  motive?  Is  it  self-sacrifice 
like  that  of  the  Christian  martyr,  or  an  intense 
manifestation  of  the  tribal  instinct  which  passes 
from  the  animal  to  the  human  herd?  In  self- 
sacrifice  for  the  good  of  humanity  such  as  that 
of  the  Christian  martyr  there  would  seem  to  be 
an  element  of  another  kind. 


IS   CHRISTIANITY  DEAD  OR  DYING  ?  97 

An  article  published  in  the  North  American 
Review  on  "The  Immortality  of  the  Soul"  has, 
it  seems,  saddened  some  of  its  readers.  The 
admissions  made  in  it  saddened  its  writer. 
But  it  would  sadden  him  and  all  of  us  still  more 
to  rest  in  untruth.  He  has  shown  that  he  so  far 
refuses  to  believe  that  all  ends  here. 

JULY,  1904. 


XDC 

THE  TWO  THEORIES  OF  LIFE 

"You  need  not  expect  that  people  will  stand 
aside  because  you  have  come.  They  are  going 
to  crowd  you,  and  you  will  have  to  crowd  them. 
They  will  leave  you  behind  unless  you  leave 
them  behind."  Such,  it  seems,  is  the  view  of 
human  society  and  life  which  can  now  be  pre- 
sented by  educational  authority.  A  generation 
ago  this  doctrine  would  have  startled  us. 
But  we  seem  verging  on  an  age  of  survival  of 
the  fittest,  fitness  being  measured  by  force;  of 
progress  by  destruction,  of  imperialism,  of  strenu- 
ous life.  Against  the  prevailing  tendencies  vital 
Christianity,  the  belief  in  the  fatherhood  of  God 
and  the  brotherhood  of  man,  continues  to  strug- 
gle, though  with  a  force  impaired  by  its  entangle- 
ment with  beliefs  which  science  and  criticism 
have  disproved,  but  which  it  is  hard  for  an  or- 
dained clergy  and  ecclesiastical  organizations  to 

cast  off.    The  world  is  again  divided  between 

98 


THE  TWO  THEORIES  OF  LIFE  99 

these  tendencies  and  the  parties  to  which  they 
give  birth,  somewhat  in  the  same  way  as  at  the 
time  of  the  Reformation  it  was  divided  between 
Catholicism  and  Protestantism,  when  the  lines  of 
nationality  were  crossed  and  superseded  by  those 
of  religious  belief.  Not  that  orthodox  and  titular 
Christianity  by  any  means  coincides  with  faith 
in  human  brotherhood  and  righteousness.  Some 
churches  have  floated  with  the  political  tide. 
But  of  the  essence  of  Christianity,  as  it  is  embodied 
in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  not  a  little  is  now 
to  be  found  outside  the  churches. 

Christian  ethic  has  suffered  by  a  belief  in  the 
inspiration  of  the  Gospels  which  has  led  to  the 
acceptance  of  Oriental  hyperbole  as  literal  pre- 
cept. The  injunctions  of  forgiveness  of  injuries, 
taken  literally,  would  be  fatuous.  But  plac- 
ability is  not  fatuous,  or  undignified.  In  a  fa- 
mous passage  of  Corneille's  aCinna,"  Augustus, 
after  overwhelming  the  offender  with  a  rehearsal 
of  his  misdeeds,  changes  his  tone  and  says,  "Let 
us  be  friends."  Is  Augustus  lowered?  Is  there 
more  dignity  in  the  opposite  sentiment,  so  frankly 
avowed  in  the  columns  of  the  Sun  by  a  repre- 
sentative of  the  old  Dispensation  ? 


100  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

The  Christian  doctrine  of  fraternity  is,  at  all 
events  for  many  of  us,  more  comfortable  than 
that  of  mutual  jostling  and  the  survival  of  the 
strongest.  We  cannot  all  be  foremost  in  the  race 
of  competition,  we  cannot  all  thrust  each  other 
aside,  we  cannot  all  climb  over  each  other's 
heads.  But  we  can  all  do  our  duty  in  our  place ; 
and  if  duty  is  the  pledge  of  happiness,  we  can  all 
in  a  measure  be  happy. 

Is  competition  or  cooperation  the  fundamental 
law  of  humanity?  Take  any  product  of  human 
industry,  a  manufactured  article,  for  instance; 
trace  it  back  in  thought  to  the  multifarious  agencies 
which  in  countries  and  ages  widely  apart  have 
contributed  to  its  production,  and  say  whether  it 
does  not  speak  of  a  relation  very  different  from 
that  of  herds  of  animals  jostling  each  other. 
What  is  the  mainspring  of  progress  but  cooper- 
ation ? 

Nobody  could  be  more  free  from  orthodox 
superstition  of  any  kind  than  Carlyle,  who  in  one 
of  his  Essays,  after  speaking  of  other  agencies  of 
progress,  says :  — 

Or,  to  take  an  infinitely  higher  instance,  that  of  the 
Christian  religion,  which,  under  every  theory  of  it,  in  the 


THE  TWO  THEORIES  OF  LIFE  IOI 

believing  or  unbelieving  mind,  must  ever  be  regarded  as 
the  crowning  glory,  or  rather  the  life  and  soul,  of  our  whole 
modern  culture:  How  did  Christianity  arise  and  spread 
abroad  among  men?  Was  it  by  institutions,  and  establish- 
ments and  well-arranged  systems  of  mechanism?  Not  so; 
on  the  contrary,  in  all  past  and  existing  institutions  for 
those  ends  its  divine  spirit  has  invariably  been  found  to 
languish  and  decay.  It  arose  in  the  mystic  deeps  of  man's 
soul;  and  was  spread  abroad  by  the  "preaching  of  the 
word,"  by  simple,  altogether  natural  and  individual  efforts; 
and  flew,  like  hallowed  fire,  from  heart  to  heart,  till  all 
were  purified  and  illuminated  by  it;  and  its  heavenly  light 
shone,  as  it  still  shines,  and  (as  sun  or  star)  will  ever  shine, 
through  the  whole  dark  destinies  of  man. 

It  happened  that  when  I  laid  down  Carlyle 
there  met  my  eyes  a  gilt  cross  on  the  spire  of 
a  Catholic  church  illumined  by  the  sun.  The 
cross  was  the  emblem  of  all  that  was  materially 
weakest,  of  slavery  and  the  shameful  death  of  the 
slave.  The  eagle  was  the  emblem  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  the  greatest  embodiment  of  force  which 
the  world  has  ever  seen.  The  eagle  and  the 
cross  encountered  each  other.  Which  prevailed? 
It  may  be  said,  of  course,  that  the  cross  repre- 
sented a  force.  It  did,  but  the  force  was  not  that 
of  strenuous  life  and  the  big  stick. 


102  IN  QUEST   OF   LIGHT 

Once  more  I  have  not  pretended,  nor  do  I 
pretend,  to  advance  any  theory  of  the  universe 
or  of  man.  I  only  ask  that  before  we  embrace 
ultra-materialism,  with  its  apparent  corollaries, 
moral  and  social,  all  the  real  phenomena  of 
humanity,  not  only  those  with  which  physical 
science  deals  and  which  Darwin's  grand  discovery 
covers,  shall  receive  fair  consideration,  and  among 
the  rest  the  phenomena  of  history. 

AUGUST,  1904. 


XX 

TELEPATHY 

THERE  appeared  the  other  day  in  the  London 
Times  an  account  by  Mr.  Rider  Haggard  of  a 
telepathic  communication  between  him  and  his 
favorite  dog  which  he  evidently  considered  of 
great  importance.  It  seems  he  had  a  nightmare 
in  which  he  dreamed  that  his  dog  was  being 
killed  and  cried  to  him  for  help.  It  turned  out 
that  the  dog  had  been  killed  about  that  hour.  It 
does  not  seem  that  the  coincidence  of  time  was 
exact,  while  as  to  the  manner  of  the  dog's  death 
the  dream  gave  no  sign,  or  none  that  could  be 
deemed  a  coincidence.  The  narrative,  I  confess, 
seemed  to  me  less  important  as  a  proof  of  mys- 
terious agency  than  as  a  proof  of  the  extent  to 
which  fancy  can  operate  on  very  slight  materials, 
even  in  a  strong  mind.  Mr.  Haggard  designates 
his  dream  as  a  nightmare;  the  cause  of  night- 
mare is  indigestion;  and  it  is  difficult  to  believe 
that  indigestion  is  a  factor  in  the  operations  of  the 
spirit  world. 

103 


104  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

All  the  cases  of  telepathy  of  which  I  have  read 
have  seemed  to  me  to  resolve  themselves  either 
into  fulfilments  of  natural  expectations,  as  in  the 
case  of  warnings  that  a  person  known  to  be  sick 
is  dead,  or  into  accidental  coincidences,  of  which 
in  the  chapter  of  accidents  there  are  sure  to  be 
many,  some  of  them  curious  and  striking;  the 
occurrence  being  afterwards  dressed  up  by  the 
retroactive  imagination  of  which  we  are  all  apt  to 
be  the  unconscious  dupes.  It  has  been  remarked 
that  there  has  often  been  a  letter  in  the  case  and 
that  the  letters  have  not  been  produced. 

I  may  mention  an  instance  of  accidental  coinci- 
dence which  fell  within  my  own  knowledge.  A 
person  living  at  Oxford  was  staying  in  a  house 
at  some  distance  from  that  city.  Crossing  a 
heath,  he  was  attacked  by  faintness  and  lay  for 
some  time  prostrate  on  the  heath.  When  he  got 
back  to  the  house  in  which  he  was  staying  he 
found  that  at  the  very  moment  when  he  was  lying 
on  the  heath  a  telegram  had  been  received  from 
his  servant  at  Oxford  asking  whether  it  was  true 
that  he  had  died  suddenly.  Another  person  of 
the  same  name  had  died  suddenly.  This  was  the 
explanation.  Had  the  fainting  fit  ended  differ- 


TELEPATHY  IO5 

ently,  here  would  have  been  a  telepathic  warn- 
ing, and  if  not  with  a  letter,  with  a  telegram  as 
its  proof. 

As  to  spiritualism,  one  can  only  wonder  that 
the  imposture  should  have  survived  such  a  series 
of  exposures.  It  in  fact  exposes  itself,  since  the 
spirits  must  materialize  before  we  can  be  made 
sensible  of  their  presence.  The  planchette  has 
produced  nothing  but  absurdities.  Such  a  mode 
of  communication  adopted  by  spirits  is  in  itself 
absurd.  The  delusion  is  probably  kept  alive  by 
the  craving  for  intercourse  with  the  lost  objects 
of  affection.  The  premier  medium  of  the  day, 
illumined  by  a  spirit  which  had  entered  him, 
recounted  to  me  the  misfortunes  of  my  nephew, 
when  a  nephew  I  never  had.  In-  this  case  I 
rather  suspected  that  the  spirit  was  trading  on 
a  hint  given  by  a  friend  who  was  himself  mis- 
informed. When  I  asked  whether  I  was  married, 
the  answer  was  that  I  seemed  to  be  alone  in  the 
material  world  and  yet  not  alone. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  there  has  always  been 
a  craving  for  the  supernatural,  which  has  shown 
itself  in  the  eclipses  of  religion.  With  the  collapse 
of  Roman  religion  came  the  mysteries  of  Isis; 


IO6  IN   QUEST   OF  LIGHT 

with  the  collapse  of  mediaeval  Catholicism  came 
the  prevalence  of  astrology,  which  captured 
minds  so  powerful  in  different  ways  as  those  of 
Wallenstein  and  Kepler.  Such  fancies  as  spiritual- 
ism, telepathy,  planchette,  seem  to  be  the  offspring 
of  a  similar  void  in  the  soul,  created  by  the  depar- 
ture of  traditional  religion.  They  will  not  help  us 
to  save  or  revive  our  spiritual  life.  They  will  act 
in  the  opposite  way.  They  will  seduce  us  into 
grovelling  superstition.  There  are  mental  mys- 
teries, no  doubt,  still  to  be  solved  by  physiology. 
The  creative  action  of  the  imagination  in  dreams 
is  one  of  them.  So  is  the  general  mystery,  still 
profound,  of  memory.  But  there  is  no  place 
for  the  supernatural.  Let  us  put  that  away  for- 
ever. 

AUGUST,  1904. 


XXI 

SPIRITUAL  Versus  SUPERNATURAL 

I  FIND  that  an  expression  used  by  me  has 
been  misconstrued.  Referring  to  telepathy  and 
other  miracles,  I  said  that  there  was  no  place  for 
the  supernatural.  I  did  not  mean  to  say  that  there 
was  no  place  for  the  spiritual.  Spiritual  life,  with 
its  intimations,  presents  itself  to  me,  not  as  super- 
natural, but  as  the  natural  though  the  highest 
development  of  humanity. 

Another  word  on  the  subject  of  that  paper. 
Some  of  us  remember  that  the  original  form  of 
these  pretended  manifestations  was  table-turning. 
Table-turning  for  a  time  was  the  rage.  In  the 
circle  of  my  own  acquaintance  there  was  a  man 
of  considerable  intellect  and  attainments  who 
was  carried  away  by  this  absurdity.  I  took  part 
in  an  experiment,  and  plainly  saw  one  of  the  party, 
unconsciously  of  course,  pressing  the  table  and 
making  it  turn. 

"M.  M."  is  apparently  inclined  to  believe  in 
107 


IO8  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

spiritualism  because  a  female  medium  guessed 
his  malady  and  the  names  of  two  of  his  relatives. 
Could  inspiration  do  no  better  than  this  ?  These 
pretenders  are  of  course  adepts  in  the  trade.  They 
know  how  to  fish  out  information  and  how  to  feel 
their  way  with  an  inquirer  by  observation  of  face 
and  voice.  My  own  experience  has  proved  that 
the  most  famous  of  them,  when  craftily  led  on, 
can  go  utterly  astray. 

A  story  was  told  about  Alexis,  the  great  clair- 
voyant of  his  day,  which,  though  no  doubt  a  joke, 
probably  pointed  to  the  secret.  A  sceptic,  it  was 
said,  made  an  appointment  with  Alexis  for  a 
seance  and  bade  his  wife  at  that  time  put  the 
coal-scuttle  on  the  drawing-room  table.  He  re- 
turned converted,  and  reported  to  his  wife  that 
Alexis  had  told  him  that  the  coal-scuttle  was  on 
the  table.  "Bless  me!"  replied  the  wife,  "I 
quite  forgot  to  put  it  there." 

For  any  strange  manifestations  of  nervous 
sensibility,  and  for  any  thaumaturgic  performances 
for  which  they  may  afford  scope,  we  are  of  course 
prepared.  A  school-fellow  of  mine,  a  nervous 
boy,  was  thrown  by  mock-mesmeric  passes  into  a 
trance  to  get  him  out  of  which  medical  assistance 


SPIRITUAL    VERSUS  SUPERNATURAL  1 09 

was  required.  There  are  no  doubt  still  mysteries 
in  the  physical  nature  of  man.  But  they  have 
nothing  to  do  with  spiritual  life.  There  is  no 
place  for  the  supernatural,  and  in  following  that 
lure  the  spiritual  may  be  lost. 

The  case  of  wireless  telegraphy  is  cited.  But 
can  there  be  transmission  without  a  medium  ?  In 
the  case  of  wireless  telegraphy  there  is  a  known 
medium.  In  the  case  of  telepathy  no  medium  is 
known,  nor  does  the  existence  of  a  medium  seem 
possible. 

SEPTEMBER,  1904. 


XXII 

A  PROBLEM  GREATER  THAN  TELEPATHY 

THE  last-cited  case  of  telepathy  is  that  of  a 
loving  wife  filled  with  sudden  anxiety  by  the  silence 
of  her  absent  husband,  whom  she  afterwards  finds 
to  have  been  sick.  Incidents  such  as  this,  dressed 
up  by  our  retroactive  fancy,  become  mysterious 
and  the  materials  of  a  new  faith.  Our  minds  are 
thereby  turned  from  questions  really  momentous 
in  the  solution  of  which  we  are  called  upon  to 
help  each  other. 

One  writer  in  the  telepathic  discussion  glances 
at  the  question  of  a  future  state  in  a  way  which 
seems  to  imply  that  he  hardly  deems  it  pressing. 
Yet  surely  no  question  can  be  more  pressing,  if 
we  have  any  means  of  solving  it,  than  that  of 
existence  after  death.  I  avoid  the  phrase  "im- 
mortality of  the  soul,"  because  I  cannot  form  an 
idea  of  immortality  any  more  than  I  can  of  infinity 
or  eternity,  both  of  which  elude  conception. 

Conscience  tells  us  that  according  as  we  do  well 
or  ill  in  this  life  it  will  be  well  or  ill  for  us  here- 

IIO 


A  PROBLEM  GREATER  THAN  TELEPATHY   III 

after.  Is  the  evidence  of  conscience  less  trust- 
worthy than  that  of  our  bodily  senses?  If  the 
evidence  of  our  bodily  senses  and  the  science  built 
upon  them  alone  is  trustworthy,  on  what  does 
their  prerogative  rest?  May  we  not  be  in  a  uni- 
verse unseen  by  Newton  or  Darwin? 

That  death  wipes  out  the  score  of  life  and  levels 
the  best  with  the  worst  of  men,  the  man  who  has 
been  the  benefactor  with  the  one  who  has  been  the 
curse  of  his  kind,  is  a  belief  from  which  our 
moral  nature  would  seem  to  recoil  as  strongly  as 
our  physical  nature  recoils  from  anything  con- 
tradictory of  sense. 

Positivism,  in  place  of  the  hope  of  personal 
existence  hereafter,  presents  to  us  impersonal 
existence  as  a  factor  in  the  progress  of  humanity. 
But  that  which  is  not  personal  is  not  ours. 

What  would  be  the  consequence  to  society  of 
the  belief,  if  we  should  be  driven  to  it,  that  death 
is  the  end  ?  Would  there  be  any  rational  induce- 
ment to  self-sacrifice  or  effort  for  the  common 
good?  Would  not  struggle  for  the  means  of 
present  enjoyment  be  in  fact  the  true  wisdom? 
Is  not  a  tendency  of  this  kind  making  itself  felt 
as  religious  belief  grows  weak  ? 


112  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

Old  arguments  of  the  natural  kind  no  doubt  are 
failing  us.  We  can  no  longer  hold  with  the  good 
Bishop  Butler  that  the  soul  is  a  being  distinct 
from  the  body,  indiscerptible,  and  therefore  prob- 
ably indissoluble.  We  know  that  what  we  call 
the  soul  is  the  consummate  outcome  of  the  general 
frame.  Nor  can  we,  with  Socrates,  found  our 
faith  on  a  preexistence  attested  by  the  presence 
in  us  of  innate  ideas.  When  Socrates  points  to 
the  distinction  between  the  lyre  and  the  melody 
as  analogous  to  that  between  the  body  and  the 
soul,  a  hearer  replies  at  once  that  when  the  lyre 
is  broken  the  melody  dies.  Of  ghosts  or  spiritual- 
ist apparitions  there  is  no  need  to  speak. 

We  are  met  with  the  cases  of  idiots,  lunatics, 
children  dying  in  infancy,  savages,  and  others, 
who  have  not  seen  moral  light.  That  argu- 
ment seems  valid  against  universal  resurrection, 
but  not  against  the  survival  of  responsibility 
where  responsibility  has  been. 

Conscience  implies  the  existence  of  a  deity,  to 
whose  tribunal  it  appeals,  as  to  that  of  a  power 
which  upholds  righteousness  and  directs  all  in 
the  end  to  good.  It  implies,  not  the  freedom  of 
the  will,  if  by  that  is  meant  independence  of  ante- 


A  PROBLEM  GREATER  THAN  TELEPATHY    113 

cedents,  but  volition,  the  reality  of  which  extreme 
materialism  seems  to  deny.  The  exact  relation 
between  the  antecedents  and  the  volition  we  may 
not  be  able  to  define.  The  impelling  motive,  as 
was  said  before,  seems  not  to  be  the  only  factor  in 
action  of  which  we  are  conscious.  We  are  con- 
scious also  of  the  exertion  of  the  will,  though  not 
distinctly  in  actions  where  there  is  no  conflict  of 
motive,  in  actions  where  there  is.  The  existence 
of  volition,  as  well  as  of  the  antecedents,  is  as- 
sumed in  all  our  judgments  on  our  own  actions 
and  those  of  our  fellows. 

OCTOBER,  1904. 


XXIII 

DR.   OSLER  ON  SCIENCE  AND  IMMORTALITY 

DR.  OSLER'S  erudite  and  elegant  lecture  on 
"Science  and  Immortality"  has  just  come  into 
my  hands. 

Dr.  Osier  plays  gracefully  with  the  subject. 
His  own  attitude  towards  the  doctrine  of  a  future 
life  appears,  to  use  his  own  phrase,  to  be  "  Gallio- 
nian."  He  seems  to  regard  the  doctrine  as  a 
beautiful  but  perfectly  unpractical  hypothesis. 
He  winds  up,  indeed,  with  a  faint  affirmative  and 
a  mallem  errare  cum  Platone.  To  me,  I  confess, 
the  question  seems  one  on  which  at  the  present 
time  we  can  no  more  afford  to  err  with  Plato  than 
we  can  to  err  with  Eddy  or  Dowie. 

Philosophic  dalliance  with  the  problem  of  a 
future  state  may  be  more  congenial  to  Dives  than 
to  Lazarus.  If  there  is  nothing  beyond  this  life, 
what  a  spectacle  is  the  state  of  Lazarus  in  the  slums 
of  New  York !  What  a  spectacle  is  the  life  of  the 

unfortunate  generally!    What  a  spectacle  is  His- 

114 


DR.  OSLER  ON  SCIENCE  AND  IMMORTALITY      115 

tory!  Schopenhauer  said,  not  that  this  was  the 
worst  of  all  conceivable,  but  that  it  was  the  worst 
of  all  possible  worlds,  and  could  not  bear  another 
grain  of  evil.  There  has  been  and  is  a  terribly 
large  proportion  of  the  human  race  which  might 
think  that  the  pessimist  told  the  truth.  The 
crown  of  all  things,  Dr.  Osier  says,  is  man.  If 
happiness  is  the  criterion,  what  a  crown ! 

"Immortality"  is  inconceivable.  We  must  dis- 
card the  term.  The  question  is  whether  our  hopes 
and  responsibilities  extend  beyond  this  world  and 
life.  Conscience  says  that  they  do.  Conscience 
tells  us  that  this  world,  its  awards  and  its  judg- 
ments, are  not  all,  but  that  as  we  do  well  or  ill  in 
this  life,  it  will  be  well  or  ill  for  us  in  the  sum  of 
things.  What  question  can  be  more  practical? 
Even  taking  it  on  the  lowest  ground,  what  would 
our  social  state  be  if  vice  and  wickedness  had  only 
to  bilk  human  law?  Would  not  self-sacrifice  be 
folly  and  martyrdom  insanity? 

That  physical  science  has  nothing  to  say  to 
this  matter  is  true.  But  is  physical  science  our 
only  sure  source  of  knowledge?  Are  our  moral 
instincts  less  trustworthy  than  our  physical  sense  ? 
As  I  have  already  said,  I  affirm  nothing;  but  I 


Il6  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

call  attention  to  the  apparent  fact  that  there  is  in 
man  something  of  which  the  materialist  still  owes 
us  an  account.  All  may  be,  and  in  a  sense  no 
doubt  is,  the  outcome  of  physical  evolution.  That 
does  not  seem  to  me  to  close  the  inquiry.  What- 
ever the  process  of  development,  Dr.  Osier  is  not 
a  germ,  but  a  man,  well  read  in  the  noble  literature 
of  the  seventeenth  century. 

That  men  go  about  their  daily  work  thinking 
little  of  a  future  state,  as  Dr.  Osier  says,  is  per- 
fectly true.  But  is  not  the  influence  of  conscience, 
with  what  it  implies,  always  there,  unless  it  has 
been  absolutely  stifled,  as  in  the  case  of  consum- 
mate wickedness  it  probably  is?  Does  not  every 
man,  when  he  obeys  his  conscience  against  his 
passions  or  his  interest,  virtually  express  a  belief 
in  something  beyond  this  world? 

"Teresianism,"  as  Dr.  Osier  calls  the  fervent 
belief,  such  as  was  that  of  St.  Teresa,  in  the  life 
to  come,  has,  as  he  admits,  produced  the  salt  of 
the  earth,  which  a  mere  falsehood  could  hardly 
have  done.  On  the  other  hand,  what  followed 
when  French  Jacobinism  and  Terrorism  had 
written  over  the  gate  of  the  cemetery:  "Here  is 
eternal  sleep"? 


DR.  OSLER  ON  SCIENCE  AND  IMMORTALITY      1 1/ 

The  dull  submission  of  the  dying  to  the  inevi- 
table, when,  as  in  most  cases,  emotion  is  weakened, 
while  death  is  often  a  release  from  pain,  does  not 
seem  to  me  to  go  far  toward  proving  that  death 
is  not  a  turning-point,  but  the  end.  From  the  old 
ecclesiastical  terrors  most  men  are  now  free. 

The  conclusions  of  extreme  materialism  would 
be  welcome  to  few.  But  if  the  materialist  proves 
his  case,  we  acquiesce.  There  is  no  hope  for  us 
in  our  present  perplexities  but  in  the  frank  accept- 
ance of  all  demonstrated  truth. 

OCTOBER,  1904. 


QF THE 

f  UNIVERSITY 

OF 


XXIV 

DISPENSING  WITH  THE   SOUL 

ONE  more  word.  On  re-perusing  Dr.  Osier's 
very  charming  treatise,  I  find  him  saying  that 
"modern  psychological  science  dispenses  altogether 
with  the  soul."  With  the  soul  as  a  separate  entity 
breathed  into  the  body  at  birth  and  parted  from 
it  at  death  all  free  thinkers  now  dispense.  But 
has  reason  yet  dispensed  with  spiritual  life  and 
its  attendant  hopes  ?  Are  we,  as  Dr.  Osier  ap- 
parently thinks,  bound  to  admit  the  absolute 
prepotency  of  the  "  germ-plasm "  and  to  assume 
that  the  limit  of  its  physical  development  is  the 
limit  of  ethical  possibility?  Is  it  not  still  con- 
ceivable that  something  different  in  kind  from 
the  germ-plasm  may  be  the  ultimate  issue  of  the 
process  ?  In  fact,  can  one  thing  differ  more  in 
kind  from  another  thing  than  Dr.  Osier  with  his 
science  and  his  culture  differs  in  kind  from  the 
germ-plasm?  If  development  goes  so  far,  are 

118 


DISPENSING  WITH  THE  SOUL  1 19 

we  warranted  in  assuming  that  it  cannot  go  farther 
and  culminate  in  spiritual  life?  Does  the  germ- 
plasm  contain  the  whole  productive  power  and 
all  the  promise  in  itself?  Left  to  itself,  would 
it  come  to  anything?  Is  it  not  indebted  for  its 
development  to  the  vivifying  and  moulding  influ- 
ences in  which  it  is  steeped?  If  it  is,  nothing  in 
the  germ-plasm  itself  can  apparently  be  an  abso- 
lute limitation.  The  germ  is  a  starting-point,  as 
was  the  particle  in  the  nebula.  The  goal  may  be 
spiritual  life;  by  which  of  course  is  meant 
not  "spiritualism"  or  anything  of  that  kind, 
but  the  life  of  moral  aspiration  and  effort, 
with  any  promise  or  assurance  which  it  may 
contain. 

The  authority  of  conscience  is  a  dream;  there 
is  no  moral  tribunal  higher  than  that  of  human 
opinion  and  law;  death  levels  the  good  with  the 
wicked,  the  sensualist  with  the  pure  of  heart,  the 
man  who  has  been  a  blessing  with  the  man  who 
has  been  a  curse  to  his  kind.  Such  is  the  con- 
clusion to  which  thorough-going  materialism  leads. 
We  may  have  to  face  it.  I  have  not  said  and  do 
not  say  that  we  may  not.  But  we  want  the  ques- 
tion to  be  thoroughly  discussed,  and  we  maintain 


I2O  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

that  it  is  not  fanciful  or  dilettantist,  but  practical 
in  the  highest  degree.  Apart  from  spiritual  hopes, 
would  not  social  morality  feel  the  change  ?  Is  not 
social  morality  feeling  the  change  already? 

DECEMBER,  1904. 


XXV 

THE  RELIGIOUS  SITUATION 

THE  acceptance  of  my  letters  by  the  Sun  has 
brought  me  many  tokens  of  interest  in  the  sub- 
ject to  which  they  relate.  Some  of  my  corre- 
spondents have  asked  me  for  my  theory.  But  I 
have  no  theory.  All  I  pretend  to  do  is  to  state 
the  case  and  invite  opinion. 

The  subject  is  one  of  interest,  practical  as  well 
as  deep,  were  it  only  from  its  bearing  on  the  future 
position  of  the  clergy.  What  are  clergymen  on 
whose  minds  the  light  of  criticism  has  dawned 
hereafter  to  do?  Renan  and  others  like  him 
seem  in  effect  to  wish  that  the  clergy  should  con- 
tinue to  preach  a  religion  suited  to  the  multitude, 
while  they,  the  sons  of  light,  sit  aloft  in  light  by 
themselves.  But  will  learned  and  conscientious 
men,  as  your  clergy  must  be,  be  found  to  preach 
wholesome  falsehood  for  a  State  purpose,  and, 
like  Roman  augurs,  to  laugh  each  other  in  the 
face  when  they  meet? 


122  IN   QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

If  ultra-materialism  is  true,  man  is  a  mere 
development  of  the  germ-plasm.  There  is  no 
ground  for  belief  in  a  moral  government  of  the 
universe.  Conscience,  if  it  speaks  of  a  tribunal 
higher  than  the  human,  lies.  Death  ends  all  for 
us,  and  levels  us  all.  When  we  die,  it  signifies 
nothing  whether  our  life  has  been  good  or  evil. 
Materialists  say  that  the  evildoer  will  be  punished 
by  remorse  for  a  wasted  life.  But  how  can  his 
life  be  said  to  have  been  wasted  if  he  has  supped 
full  of  pleasure,  gratified  every  passion,  and  bilked 
human  justice?  Positivism  tells  us  that  we  shall 
live  for  good  or  evil  in  the  future  of  the  race. 
What  interest,  when  we  have  personally  ceased 
to  be,  shall  we  have  in  the  future  of  the  race? 
After  all,  in  what  will  the  race  end  ? 

Dogmatic  and  miraculous  Christianity  we  resign. 
But  the  vital  principles  of  Christianity,  the  father- 
hood of  God  and  the  brotherhood  of  man,  still 
rest  on  their  historical  and  moral  evidences  as  a 
key  to  the  moral  problem  of  our  being.  At  the 
same  time  Christianity,  by  throwing  off  dogma 
and  miracle,  is  rid  of  one  of  its  heaviest  burdens. 
There  is  no  longer  a  barrier  between  Christendom 
and  the  rest  of  humanity.  The  term  " heathen" 


THE  RELIGIOUS  SITUATION  123 

•\ 

becomes  unmeaning.  Socrates,  Epictetus,  Marcus 
Aurelius,  are  no  longer  consigned  to  the  uncove- 
nanted  mercies  of  God.  We  live  henceforth 
under  an  ampler  sky. 

There  is  no  use  in  guessing  at  the  nature  of  the 
Power  which  fills  and  moves  the  universe.  We 
cannot  hope  to  delineate  or  define  the  inconceiv- 
able. The  world  visible  to  us  presents  to  our 
senses  a  perplexing  mixture  of  that  which  to  us 
is  good  with  that  which  to  us  is  evil,  of  order  with 
disorder,  of  beneficence  with  cruelty,  of  beauty 
with  the  unbeautiful.  We  cannot  solve  the 
mystery.  Bridgewater  Treatises,  picking  out  in- 
stances of  order  and  beneficence  and  saying 
nothing  about  the  opposites,  no  longer  afford  us 
help.  Human  excellence  is  attainable  only  through 
effort,  which  implies  a  struggle  with  evil.  This, 
apart  from  revelation,  is  apparently  the  only  hint 
of  a  solution  that  we  have.  Yet  it  is  difficult  to 
believe  that  rational  being  is  confined  to  this 
planet  or  that  nothing  speaks  to  us  through  the 
majesty  and  glory  of  the  universe. 

Conscience,  says  Bishop  Butler,  a  keen  anato- 
mist of  human  nature,  if  it  had  power  as  it  has 
authority,  would  rule  the  world.  Conscience  tells 


124  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

us  that  as  we  do  well  or  ill  it  will  be  well  or  ill 
for  us  in  the  end.  Is  this  delusion?  Is  con- 
science or  is  it  not  really  a  part  of  our  nature  ? 
If  it  is,  have  we  any  special  ground  for  refusing 
its  evidence  more  than  for  refusing  that  of  our 
physical  senses  on  which  all  science,  moral  or 
physical,  rests?  After  all,  what  is  truth  but  that 
which,  by  the  constitution  of  our  nature,  we  can- 
not help  believing?  Is  any  man  without  a  con- 
science? There  are  men  who  crush  it,  perhaps 
silence  it  in  themselves;  but  is  any  man  without 
it? 

That  notions  of  duty  vary  considerably  from 
age  to  age  may  be  admitted.  But  conscience 
always  declares  for  duty  as  we  see  it  at  the  time 
against  the  forces  of  passion  or  self-love. 

It  may  be  true  that  conscience,  like  other  parts 
of  our  nature,  including  the  scientific  faculties,  is 
developed  by  an  evolutionary  process.  This  does 
not  affect  its  authority.  When  developed,  it  is 
here.  We  must,  however,  be  allowed  to  challenge 
the  claim  of  the  germ-plasm  to  prepotency  and 
finality.  The  germ-plasm  is  the  starting-point  of 
a  development  which,  carried  forward  and  moulded 
by  a  variety  of  influences,  culminates  in  Socrates. 


THE   RELIGIOUS   SITUATION  12$ 

But  Socrates  is  not  a  germ-plasm  any  more  than  he 
is  a  particle  in  the  nebula  from  which  the  germ- 
plasm  itself  is  an  emanation.  That  man  had  his 
foundation  in  the  dust  we  have  long  believed. 
For  dust  put  radium,  if  you  will;  but  con- 
science, moral  aspiration,  spiritual  affection,  the 
sense  of  spiritual  beauty,  idealization,  are,  if  our 
inner  sense  does  not  utterly  mislead  us,  higher  in 
their  nature  than  dust. 

FEBRUARY,  1905. 


XXVI 

IS  MATERIALISM  ADVANCING? 

IT  would  seem  that  the  answer  to  the  question 
whether  materialism  has  been  making  way  must 
partly  depend  on  the  meaning  attached  to  the 
word.  My  friend  Professor  Tyndall,  as  I  think  I 
have  said  before,  called  himself,  and  insisted  upon 
being  called,  a  materialist,  because,  as  a  man  of 
science,  he  believed  that  in  matter  was  the  poten- 
tiality of  all  things.  Yet  in  sentiment,  character, 
and  aspirations  no  human  being  could  be  less 
material.  In  this  I  believe  he  was  the  type  of 
many  who,  though  they  have  embraced  the  mate- 
rialist hypothesis,  remain  spiritual  in  character 
and  aim. 

It  can  scarcely  be  denied  that  between  the  higher 
criticism  on  one  side  and  Darwin's  momentous 
discovery  on  the  other,  materialism,  in  the  scien- 
tific and  philosophic  sense,  positive  or  negative, 
is  gaining  ground.  We  are  called  upon  at  all 

events  to  find  a  new  warrant  for  spiritual  life,  for 

126 


IS  MATERIALISM  ADVANCING  ?  127 

reliance  on  the  dictates  of  conscience,  for  any 
hopes  that  we  may  have  cherished  of  existence 
beyond  the  grave,  for  confidence  in  a  divine  order 
of  the  universe.  We  can  no  longer  believe  that 
the  miscellany  of  Hebrew  writings,  many  of  them 
of  doubtful  authorship  and  date,  some  of  them 
plainly  mythical,  are  a  divine  revelation.  Nor 
is  anything  to  be  hoped  from  an  attempt  to  evade 
the  difficulty  by  suggesting  that  Deity,  in  its  deal- 
ings with  man,  had  to  accommodate  itself  to  the 
Darwinian  law  of  evolution.  Of  the  Gospels, 
criticism  has  spared  only  the  character  and  teach- 
ings of  Jesus,  which,  on  any  hypothesis,  have 
given  birth  to  Christendom.  In  the  authenticity, 
contemporaneity,  harmony  of  the  documents,  we 
can  confide  no  more.  We  can  no  longer  sincerely 
accept  the  evidence  for  the  Incarnation,  the 
Immaculate  Conception,  the  miracles,  the  Resur- 
rection; or  deem  it  such  as  would  certainly  have 
been  given  in  proof  of  a  revelation  which  was  to 
be  the  light  of  the  world.  Moreover,  the  Fall 
being  a  myth,  as  it  is  now  allowed  almost  on  all 
hands  to  be,  there  is  no  ground  for  the  Incarnation 
and  the  Atonement,  a  disclosure  which  in  itself 
is  fatal  to  the  dogmatic  and  traditional  creed  of 


128  IN  QUEST  OF   LIGHT 

Christendom.  Nor,  we  must  sorrowfully  confess, 
is  the  collapse  of  our  evidences  limited  to  the  case 
of  revelation.  It  extends  to  that  of  natural 
religion.  Bishop  Butler's  proof  of  immortality, 
resting  on  the  separate  existence  of  the  soul  as 
an  entity  breathed  into  the  body  at  birth  and 
released  from  it  at  death,  has  been  swept  away  by 
evolution.  Theism  itself  has  been  seriously  called 
in  question,  and  arguments  founded  on  the  proofs 
of  universal  beneficence,  such  as  the  writers  of  the 
Bridgewater  Treatises  deemed  conclusive,  will  un- 
happily no  longer  avail.  The  wrench  is  great; 
but  through  frank  abandonment  of  that  which 
cannot  be  sustained  lies  our  only  road  to  truth. 

For  the  first  time  perhaps  in  history,  man  stands 
with  his  unassisted  reason,  independent  of  any 
revelation  or  tradition,  in  face  of  the  mystery  of 
his  existence  and  of  the  order  of  the  universe.  If 
there  is  any  historical  precedent,  it  is  probably  the 
position  of  the  Greek  philosophers.  But  the  Greek 
philosophers  were  children  in  science.  Their  cos- 
mic speculations  were  ingenious  guesses.  Besides, 
they  had  not  absolutely  renounced  the  State  religion. 
Socrates  worshipped  the  gods  of  the  State,  and 
bequeathed  an  offering  to  ^Esculapius.  Little  will 


IS   MATERIALISM  ADVANCING  ?  I2Q 

be  found  in  the  Greek  philosophy  at  all  helpful  to 
present  investigation.  The  thought  of  the  Roman 
stoics  was  given  to  the  formation  of  personal  char- 
acter. Nor  is  there  much  to  aid  us  in  the  phi- 
losophy of  the  Voltairean  era.  It  had  no  Darwin. 
It  is  extremely  controversial,  and  therefore  want- 
ing in  breadth  and  in  calmness  of  vision.  Besides, 
neither  Voltaire  nor  Rousseau  is  independent 
of  theistic  tradition.  Voltaire,  as  we  remember, 
avowed  his  belief  that  the  fear  of  God  was  neces- 
sary to  save  our  throats  from  being  cut;  and  he 
built  a  church  with  the  inscription,  "Deo  Erexit 
Voltaire,"  which,  if  he  had  said  what  he  felt, 
would  perhaps  have  been  "  Voltairio  Erexit  Deus." 
No  one  surely  can  treat  these  questions  lightly. 
No  one  can  think  that  even  in  a  social  point  of 
view  it  matters  nothing  whether  death  ends  and 
cancels  all  or  whether  conscience  is  a  delusion. 
Dr.  Osier  may  be  right  in  saying  that  most  people 
think  little  about  a  future  life.  This  may  be 
partly  because  the  future  life  has  been  presented 
to  them  in  a  guise  which  no  mind  can  grasp,  and 
which  is  at  variance  with  their  practical  sense  of 
justice  and  mercy.  Still,  the  belief  has  been  there ; 
and  so  has  the  authority  of  conscience.  The 


130  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

churches  are  a  momentous  part  of  our  social 
organization,  and  on  these  beliefs  they  rest. 
Habit  and  opinion  will  sustain  them,  probably 
are  now  sustaining  many  of  them,  after  the  de- 
parture of  positive  belief.  They  may  glide,  as 
not  a  few  of  them  are  now  gliding,  into  social 
congregations,  spiritual  in  their  tone,  with  moral 
objects,  and  under  highly  cultivated  leadership. 
There  are  already  inklings  of  such  a  change. 

Inquiry  has  happily  become  earnest,  calm,  and 
tolerant.  It  may  yet  end  in  inducing  the  germ- 
plasm  to  limit  its  unbounded  pretensions  and  leave 
room  for  the  continued  existence  of  spiritual  life, 
and  of  such  hopes  as  may  reasonably  be  attached 
thereto.  A  new  religion  independent  of  tradition 
may  yet  be  born. 

In  the  meantime  there  is  a  natural  tendency  to 
take  refuge  in  fantastic  speculations  of  the  spiritu- 
alist kind  against  which  we  have  to  be  on  our 
guard. 

APRIL,  1905. 


XXVII 

DOUBT  AND  ITS  FRUITS 

"B.  D.,  OXON.,"  I  can  conscientiously  assure 
him,  mistakes  my  position  if  he  thinks  that 
my  object  is  destructive.  That  which  cannot 
be  maintained,  it  seems  to  me,  we  ought  frankly 
to  resign,  that  we  may  hold  fast  that  which  can. 
What  is  really  injurious  to  the  clergy  is  the  sugges- 
tion that  they  should  continue  to  preach  for  pur- 
poses of  expediency  that  which  has  ceased  to  be 
believed.  To  what  extent  the  doubts  manifestly 
prevalent  among  the  laity  may  have  spread  to 
the  clergy,  I  do  not  pretend  to  say.  That  they 
have  spread  to  some  extent  surely  cannot  be 
gainsaid. 

The  volume  of  letters  about  religion  entitled 
"Do  We  Believe?",  a  selection  from  nine 
thousand  sent  to  the  London  Daily  Telegraph 
in  three  months,  is  a  proof  that  the  subject 
has  living  and  general  interest.  This  book  is  a 
fair  mirror  of  opinion,  and  in  two  respects  is 


132  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

welcome.  It  proves  at  once  the  triumph  of 
toleration  and  the  earnestness  of  quest  for  truth. 
Of  dogmatic  narrowness  or  bitterness  there  is 
hardly  a  trace.  We  are  in  a  far  better  and  more 
hopeful  state  than  Christendom  was  a  hundred 
years  ago. 

The  collection  is  divided  into  three  parts: 
"Faith,"  "Unfaith,"  and  "Doubt."  Doubt  is 
hardly  distinguishable  from  Unfaith.  Nor  does 
Faith  make  any  serious  stand  for  the  evidences. 
The  stand  it  makes  is  for  Christian  character  and 
the  consolations  of  religion.  Even  Archbishop 
Temple,  when  interrogated  about  the  miracles, 
can  only  say  that  omnipotence  had  always  power 
to  perform  them,  and  that  the  absence  of  them 
in  our  day  is  no  proof  of  their  absence  in  past 
times;  two  propositions  which  a  sceptic  might 
subscribe.  Unfaith  and  Doubt  are  left  in  pos- 
session of  the  critical  field,  and  they  are  able  to 
cite  startling  admissions  on  the  clerical  side,  such 
as  that  of  an  ecclesiastic  of  eminence  who  gives 
up  as  mythical  the  virgin  birth  of  the  Redeemer. 

On  the  other  hand,  Unfaith  and  Doubt  generally 
accept  the  Christian  view  of  character  and  the 
Christian  rule  of  life.  They  place  happiness  in 


DOUBT  AND   ITS  FRUITS  133 

benevolence,  which  is  taken  to  be  its  own  reward. 
On  what  is  that  assumption  founded  if  there  is 
no  God  or  Hereafter  ?  If  conscience  is  a  delusion, 
and  death  clears  all  scores,  what  have  we  to  say 
to  the  man  who  indulges  his  lust  and  escapes  the 
law?  He  may  be  a  social  nuisance,  but  how  can 
you  show  that,  from  his  own  point  of  view,  he  is 
unwise?  "Man,"  says  one  bold  doubter,  "lives 
in  a  world  which  gets  its  living  by  lying  and  deceit. 
You  must  fight  that  world  with  its  own  weapons. 
And  if  you  are  sharp  enough,  you  will  become 
a  respected  member  of  society."  What  have  we 
to  say  to  the  man  if  he  wins  his  game  ? 

If  this  life  is  all,  what  a  spectacle  is  history! 
What  is  there  to  redeem  the  picture  of  the  bar- 
barism or  pain  and  misery  in  which  myriads 
have  lived  and  died,  in  which  millions  are  still 
living  and  dying  ?  Is  it  easy  to  confute  the  pessi- 
mist who  wishes  that  such  a  world  had  never  been  ? 

A  bishop  is  cited  as  averring  that  the  doctrine 
of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  would  never  do  for 
foreign  policy  or  for  the  management  of  States. 
The  precepts  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  are  in 
the  language  of  Oriental  hyperbole.  However, 
they  are  not  meant  for  foreign  policy  or  for  the 


134  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

management  of  States,  which  Jesus  never  had 
before  his  mind,  but  put  aside  with  the  precept, 
"Render  unto  Caesar  the  things  which  are  Caesar's." 
Jesus  recognized  the  calling  of  the  soldier  and  the 
authority  of  public  law.  St.  Louis  of  France 
acted  even  in  his  foreign  relations  on  the  Christian 
principle,  with  results  not  altogether  disastrous. 

If,  as  the  result  of  this  discussion,  theism  losesreve- 
lation,  it  ceases  to  be  perplexed  by  attempts  to  grasp 
eternity  and  infinity,  to  excogitate  a  primum  mobile, 
to  reconcile  almighty  goodness  with  the  existence  of 
evil.  Is  conscience  the  voice  of  the  Power  which 
rules  our  world  ?  Are  moral  effort  and  struggle  to- 
wards perfection  the  dispensation  under  which  we 
live  ?  If  so,  our  life  is  not  without  a  guiding  light. 

Immortality  passes  our  conceptions.  We  now 
know,  too,  that  the  soul  is  not  a  being  separate 
from  the  body,  enclosed  in  it  at  birth  and  severed 
from  it  at  death.  Still,  spiritual  life  may  be  a  reality 
and  may  be  instinct  with  further  hopes.  The  imper- 
sonal immortality  in  the  progress  of  the  race  which 
Positivism  offers  us  is  little  consoling.  If  a  man  con- 
tributes to  the  progress  of  the  race,  and  in  that 
sense  lives  in  it,  so  it  may  be  said  does  anything 
that  helps  progress,  a  beast  of  burden  or  a  machine. 


DOUBT  AND  ITS  FRUITS  135 

Christianity,  ceasing  to  be  a  revelation,  does 
not  cease  to  be  moral  light.  It  has  produced 
Christendom,  and  Christendom  has  been  nearly 
conterminous  with  moral  civilization.  This  is 
matter  of  history.  Nor  has  the  moral  influence 
of  Christianity  been  confined  to  the  doctrinal 
pale.  What  is  to  be  the  moral  code  of  materialism 
we  have  yet  to  learn.  The  moral  code  of  ag- 
nosticism is  still  Christian. 

Let  me  repeat  that  I  do  not  presume  to  broach 
a  theory.  My  aim  is  only  to  keep  in  the  right 
path,  frankly  to  resign  whatever  has  been  dis- 
proved, to  be  cautious  in  accepting  the  extreme 
conclusions  of  a  new-born  materialism  riding  on 
the  wings  of  a  grand  discovery,  and  to  avoid 
the  misleading  fancies  which  swarm  in  the  eclipse 
of  religion,  such  as  spiritualism,  clairvoyance, 
planchette,  and  telepathic  revelation.  Especially 
do  I  wish  to  challenge  proof  of  the  assumption, 
fatal  to  spiritual  life  and  its  hopes,  that  the  germ- 
plasm,  as  it  is  the  beginning  of  our  being,  must 
be  the  limit  of  its  development  and  its  end.  In 
this  at  all  events  I  may  hope  to  have  "B.  D.,  Oxon.," 
on  my  side. 

MAY,  1905. 


XXVIII 

THE  ANGLICAN  PETITION  FOR  FREEDOM 

I  THANK  the  Sun  for  putting  me  in  a  right 
light  and  pointing  out  that  my  object  is  not  to 
aid  in  destruction,  but  rather  to  ascertain  the  real 
limits  of  the  destructive  process,  and  especially 
to  challenge  what  appeared  to  me  to  be  the  extreme 
assumptions  of  the  materialist  school.  We  seek, 
amid  these  troubled  waters,  to  find,  if  possible, 
some  anchorage  for  a  reasonable  faith. 

The  inquiry  is  partly  historical,  and  as  such 
comes  within  the  province  of  a  student  of  history. 
The  part  which  is  strictly  theological  would  more 
properly  belong  to  our  theological  guides  if  only 
their  thought  and  utterance  were  free. 

A  number  of  Anglican  divines,  including  some 
of  rank  and  reputation,  plead  for  liberty  to  deal 
honestly  with  the  New  Testament  in  the  light  of 
critical  investigation.  By  the  heads  of  the  Cana- 
dian Church  at  Montreal  they  are  pointed  to  the 
door  and  told  that  in  that  way  they  may  save  their 

136 


THE  ANGLICAN  PETITION  FOR  FREEDOM        137 

honor;  as  though  honor  were  separable  from 
loyalty  to  truth.  This  awakens  us  to  the  disad- 
vantage under  which  this  vital  inquiry  is  being 
pursued.  The  clergy  of  all  denominations,  the 
men  by  vocation  set  apart,  by  their  training 
specially  equipped,  by  their  personal  aspirations 
dedicated  to  the  service  of  spiritual  life,  are  by 
their  ordination  vows  debarred  from  conscien- 
tious inquiry.  They  are  fettered  by  doctrinal 
chains  forged  in  days  of  imperfect  knowledge  and 
sectarian  strife,  in  some  cases  fully  as  much  by 
the  hand  of  political  power  as  by  that  of  theologi- 
cal conviction.  Is  it  not  our  interest  that  they 
should  be  set  free? 

To  take  the  case  of  the  present  remonstrants. 
I  happened  many  years  ago  to  be  the  guest  of  my 
revered  and  beloved  friend  Archbishop  Tait  when 
he  was  called  upon  to  decide  a  question  of  ritual. 
Being  occupied  at  the  time,  he  turned  me  into 
his  library  to  look  up  the  historical  point  for  him. 
In  doing  so  I  could  not  help  being  struck  with 
the  fact  that  the  code  of  belief  and  worship  by 
which  all  the  clergy  of  the  Church  of  England 
were  to  be  unalterably  bound  was  the  motley  and 
ambiguous  product  of  a  series  of  revolutions, 


138  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

all  of  which  were  the  immediate  work,  not  of 
spiritual  authority  or  conviction,  but  of  political 
power,  and  of  political  power  in  far  from  spiritual 
hands.  The  first  two  revolutions,  that  conducted 
by  Thomas  Cromwell  and  the  reaction  which 
afterwards  followed  the  change  of  ascendency 
in  the  King's  Council,  were  the  work  of  Henry 
VIII.  The  third  was  the  work  of  the  intriguing 
politicians  who  formed  the  Council  of  Edward  VI. 
The  last,  and  that  which  has  left  the  deepest  trace, 
was  the  work  of  Elizabeth,  for  whose  character 
unspiritual  is  the  mildest  term,  and  of  the  worldly- 
wise  statesmen  of  her  reign.  Through  all  the 
stages  of  the  transition  the  secular  power  can  be 
proved  to  have  been  supreme.  The  ecclesiastical 
Convocation  was  set  at  naught.  The  Anglican 
compromise  between  the  old  and  the  new  faith 
which  the  statesmen  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth 
installed  might  be  politic  for  the  time,  but  interest, 
not  conviction,  is  the  region  of  compromise, 
and  the  history  of  the  Anglican  Church  has  been 
an  intermittent  wrestle  between  the  Catholic 
and  Protestant  ideals,  closely  connected  with 
political  party,  which  under  Charles  I.  broke  out 
in  political  revolution.  This  may  be  said  without 


THE   ANGLICAN   PETITION  FOR  FREEDOM        139 

withholding  from  Anglican  piety  its  due  or  failing 
to  recognize  the  service  done  by  it  to  Christendom. 

We  now  see  the  two  elements  contending  for 
the  possession  of  the  Church  under  the  supremacy 
of  a  Parliament  for  which  Anglican  belief  is  no 
longer  a  qualification  and  in  which  religious 
interests  of  any  kind  can  hardly  be  said  to  prevail. 
High  Churchmen  are  desperately  contending  for 
the  liberty  of  interpreting  the  Protestant  Articles 
by  the  light  of  the  semi-Catholic  Liturgy.  The 
Articles  were  framed  after  the  Liturgy  and  are 
a  dogmatic  and  original  manifesto,  which  the 
Liturgy  is  not.  Rich  though  such  an  institution 
may  be  in  personal  and  pastoral  excellence,  how 
can  its  formularies  be,  as  the  Montreal  Episcopate 
seems  to  think  that  they  are,  a  final  determination 
of  religious  belief? 

What  is  said  of  the  Anglican  Church  may  be 
said  of  all  other  churches,  the  clergy  of  which 
are  bound  by  stereotyped  creeds,  products  of 
antiquated  controversy  or  enthusiasm  now  ex- 
tinct, and  by  ordination  vows.  Little,  it  would 
seem,  can  be  done  by  revising  the  Thirty-nine 
Articles,  the  Westminster  Confession,  or  any 
other  standard  of  belief.  To  prove  all  things 


I4O  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

and  hold  fast  that  which  is  good  is  surely  the  only 
ordination  vow  fit  to  be  imposed  at  the  present 
time  upon  a  keeper  and  teacher  of  religious  truth. 
If  amid  these  doubts  and  difficulties  we  look  to 
the  clergy  for  guidance,  ought  we  not  to  begin 
by  setting  them  free?  Freedom  would  entail 
no  secession,  no  renunciation,  no  change  of  con- 
viction other  than  such  as  conscience  might 
require. 

While  I  write,  a  Presbyterian  clergyman  is 
praying  for  complete  emancipation  from  the 
shackles  of  the  Westminster  Confession. 

MAY,  1905. 


XXIX 

THE  REMEDY  FOR  RELIGIOUS  DOUBT 

THE  Sun  has  been  receiving  communication 
speaking  bitterly  of  these  letters.  Their  writer 
does  not  fail  to  receive  outpourings  of  feeling, 
now  from  the  side  of  orthodoxy,  which  denounces 
him  as  an  atheist,  now  from  the  side  of  ultra-mate- 
rialism, which  taxes  him  with  cowardly  adherence 
to  theistic  superstition.  He  is  but  one  of  many 
who  in  these  days  of  perplexity  and  doubt  are 
trying  to  find  some  secure  foundation  for  belief 
in  the  moral  government  of  the  universe,  in  the 
authority  of  conscience,  and  in  the  more  hopeful 
view  of  the  change  which  is  to  take  place  at  death. 
For  the  aged  perhaps  the  last  question  has  more 
pressing  interest  than  for  the  young. 

The  Sun  tells  us  that  there  is  an  increase  of 
formal  membership  in  the  orthodox,  a  decrease 
in  the  more  rationalistic,  churches.  Granting 
this  to  be  the  case,  does  it  denote  a  decrease  of 

rationalism  and  an  increase  of  orthodox  belief? 

141 


142  IN   QUEST  OF   LIGHT 

Would  a  seceder  from  an  orthodox  Church  be 
likely  at  once  to  register  himself  elsewhere?  Is 
formal  membership  proof  of  unshaken  conviction  ? 
Judging  from  my  observation  in  England,  I  should 
say  that  it  was  not.  Does  not  this  increased  resort 
to  aesthetic  attractions  betray  a  feeling  of  mistrust  ? 
Do  we  not  hear  from  one  church  after  another, 
now  from  the  Presbyterian,  now  from  the  Anglican, 
an  appeal  of  conscientious  and  enlightened  clergy- 
men for  a  removal  or  relaxation  of  tests?  Has 
not  unrest  been  disclosed  by  a  series  of  trials 
for  heresy?  Have  not  leading  clergymen  of  the 
Church  of  England  petitioned  for  liberty  to  deal 
freely  and  critically  with  the  New  Testament? 
Has  not  Presbyterianism  produced  the  writings 
of  Robertson  Smith?  Is  not  the  " Encyclopaedia 
Biblica,"  in  which  the  resurrection  of  Christ  is 
treated  as  a  vision,  edited  by  a  Canon  of  the  Angli- 
can Church  and  professor  of  theology  at  Oxford  ? 
We  surely  have  come  to  a  crisis  in  the  history 
of  religion  and  all  that  rests  upon  it. 

There  might  be  less  disposition  to  cling  to  tra- 
ditional formularies  of  belief  and  greater  willing- 
ness to  set  the  clergy,  our  natural  guides,  free 
from  their  present  shackles  if  we  had  present 


THE  REMEDY  FOR  RELIGIOUS  DOUBT     143 

to  our  minds  the  extent  to  which  denominational 
creeds  had  been  fixed,  not  by  spiritual  authority 
of  any  kind,  but  by  secular  power,  and  largely 
for  political  ends.  In  the  case  of  the  Anglican 
Church  it  may,  I  think,  be  clearly  shown  that  from 
the  commencement  of  the  religious  revolution 
under  Henry  VIII.  to  its  close  under  Elizabeth 
the  representation  of  the  clergy  never  had  an 
effective  voice.  Convocation,  had  it  been  allowed, 
would  have  perpetuated  the  Catholic  settlement 
of  Mary;  and  of  the  episcopate,  in  the  eyes  of 
Anglicans  a  special  channel  of  true  belief,  all 
the  members  but  one,  or  if  Sodor  and  Man 
is  to  be  counted,  two,  resigned.  In  the  Scotch 
Reformation  also  influence  distinctly  political 
was  very  strong. 

One  is  surprised  to  find  that  a  champion  of 
Catholicism  writing  to  the  Sun  can  point  to 
300,000,000  nominal  Catholics  as  testifying  by 
their  unshaken  belief  to  the  stability  of  his  church. 
In  the  Papal  city  itself,  while  Ignatius  Loyola 
still  rests  in  his  shrine  of  lapis  lazuli  and  gold, 
not  far  off  rises  the  statue  of  Giordano  Bruno, 
erected  by  "the  age  which  he  foresaw"  on  the 
spot  where  he  was  burned.  But  where  would 


144  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

even  nominal  Catholicism  now  be  if  political 
power  had  not  in  Italy,  France,  Spain,  Austria, 
Bavaria,  the  Spanish  Netherlands,  forcibly  crushed 
freedom  of  inquiry  ?  The  principle  on  which  after 
the  Thirty  Years'  War  the  States  of  Germany  were 
practically  settled  was  that  the  political  sovereignty 
should  determine  the  State  religion.  With  polit- 
ical liberty  has  come  freedom  of  thought,  and  with 
freedom  of  thought  the  questionings  about  tradi- 
tional belief  and  about  the  mysteries  of  our  being  to 
which  only  reasonable  satisfaction  can  put  an  end. 
Let  those  who  shrink  with  horror  from  the  spread 
of  free  inquiry  draw  encouragement  and  charity 
at  the  same  time  from  a  grand  example.  Glad- 
stone, as  Morley's  Life  of  him  shows,  was  to  the 
end  of  his  days  a  High  Churchman,  intensely 
religious,  a  believer  in  special  providence,  in  the 
inspiration  of  Scripture,  in  the  efficacy  of  prayer. 
Yet  he  could  not  only  associate  and  act  heartily 
with  free  thinkers,  but  look  with  satisfaction 
on  the  activity  of  the  general  conscience,  and  say 
that  while  there  had  never  been  an  age  so  much 
perplexed  with  doubt,  there  had  never  been  one 
so  full  of  the  earnest  pursuit  of  truth. 

JUNE,  1905. 


XXX 

THE  ORIGIN  OF  LIFE 

WE  are  told  that  the  origin  of  life  has  at  last  been 
discovered.  This,  if  it  is  true,  might  seem  to 
make  the  case  in  favor  of  materialism  complete. 
But  is  it  the  origin  of  life  that  has  been  discovered 
or  only  the  beginning  of  life  on  this  planet  ?  That 
sooner  or  later  the  beginning  of  life  on  this  planet 
would  be  discovered  by  science  was  almost  cer- 
tain. But  the  beginning  of  life  on  this  planet 
cannot  be  assumed  to  be  its  origin.  Something 
there  must  apparently  have  been  in  that  particular 
particle  in  which  life  commenced  distinguishing 
it  from  other  particles  and  from  matter  in  general. 
If  the  source  of  this  has  been  found,  the  origin 
of  life  has  been  discovered;  otherwise  what  has 
been  discovered  is  not  the  source,  but  only  the 
beginning.  The  proof  of  physical  evolution  is 
heartily  accepted.  But  as  at  present  advised, 
we  challenge  the  assumption  that  physical  devel- 
opment out  of  a  germ-plasm  is  the  beginning  and 
end  of  all. 

L  145 


146  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

We  must  be  patient  and  make  it  our  great  aim 
at  present  to  keep  on  the  right  path  to  truth. 
It  is  said  that  we  need  not  fear  the  ascendency 
of  materialism,  since  at  present  "Psychism" 
is  coming  on  us  in  a  flood.  Yet  spiritualism, 
wrongly  so  called,  since  the  apparitions  have 
to  materialize  in  order  that  their  presence  may 
be  felt,  seems  to  have  been  pretty  well  exploded, 
with  all  its  accessories,  table  turning,  clairvoyance, 
and  planchette.  Professor  Hyslop  gently  rebuked 
me  the  other  day  for  requiring  that  the  communi- 
cations of  the  spirit  should  be  dignified.  The 
showmen  of  the  spirits,  however,  deem  it  neces- 
sary to  maintain  that  they  are. 

Telepathy  still  claims  recognition;  but  no  at- 
tempt has  yet  been  made  on  behalf  of  this  wire- 
less telegraphy  of  the  soul  to  suggest  a  possible 
medium  of  transition. 

Undoubtedly  there  are  mysteries  still  to  be 
explored  in  our  physical  nature.  The  mystery 
of  memory,  for  example,  and  that  of  the  creative 
imagination  in  dreams.  But  no  discoveries  in 
this  direction  apparently  can  confirm  the  author- 
ity of  conscience  or  establish  the  foundations 
of  religion. 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  LIFE  147 

An  eminent  Canadian  journal  contends  that 
what  appears  to  be  the  disturbance  of  religious 
belief  is  in  fact  merely  the  progress  of  theological 
science,  analogous  to  the  progress  of  other  sciences. 
It  asks  whether,  when  all  the  other  sciences  are 
advancing,  we  can  expect  the  "queen  of  the 
sciences"  to  stand  still.  The  term  "queen  of 
the  sciences"  applied  to  theology  is  mediaeval, 
and  what  the  queen  of  mediaeval  science  was, 
the  perusal  of  a  few  pages  of  Thomas  Aquinas 
will  show.  Mediaeval  theology  assumed  as  pos- 
tulates the  very  things  which  are  now  in  question, 
and  spun  out  from  them  an  immense  web  of 
deductions  which  were  taken  for  supreme  truth. 
The  mediaeval  queen  of  the  sciences  is  to-day 
as  dead  as  alchemy. 

JUNE,  1905. 


XXXI 

RATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY 

THE  present  writer's  "attitude  toward  Chris- 
tianity" has  been  the  subject  of  lively  comment 
in  clerical  quarters.  He  is  denounced  as  an 
"  atheist,"  a  term  which  seems  to  be  deemed 
applicable  to  one  who,  though  he  has  by  no  means 
renounced  theistic  belief,  has  lost  faith  in  the 
evidences  of  a  miraculous  revelation  and  in  the 
authority  of  dogma.  My  attitude,  and  I  appre- 
hend not  mine  alone,  is  that  of  one  who  has  heard 
the  words  of  the  Founder  of  Christendom  on  a 
hillside  in  Galilee.  No  miracle  was  needed  to 
confirm  belief  in  his  words,  nor  was  any  performed 
by  him  on  that  occasion.  Of  dogma  nothing 
fell  from  his  lips. 

The  evidence  of  Christianity  to  people  of  my 
way  of  thinking  is  the  character  which  it  has  pro- 
duced and  the  effect  which  its  approximate  in- 
fluence has  had  on  the  progress  of  mankind, 
notwithstanding  all  the  adverse  forces,  including 

148 


RATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY  149 

the  perversion  of  religion  itself  by  Popes,  Inquisi- 
tions, Jesuits,  and  fanatics  of  various  kinds. 
No  other  creed,  Buddhist,  Mohammedan,  or 
Rousseauist,  has  shown  such  power  for  good. 

"I  express  myself  with  caution  lest  I  should 
be  mistaken  to  vilify  reason,  which  is  indeed 
the  only  faculty  we  have  to  judge  concerning  any- 
thing, even  revelation  itself;  or  be  misunderstood 
to  assert  that  a  supposed  revelation  cannot  be 
proved  false  from  internal  characters."  So  says 
Bishop  Butler,  of  all  apologists  the  greatest. 
If  reason  has  been  given  us  by  the  author  of  our 
being  as  our  guide  and  our  sole  guide  to  truth, 
are  not  the  discoveries  of  science  and  criticism 
as  really  revelations  as  though  they  had  been 
dictated  to  an  inspired  penman  or  proclaimed 
amid  the  thunders  of  Sinai? 

Of  the  miracles  not  one  is  better  attested  than 
the  casting  out  of  devils  into  a  herd  of  swine  at 
Gadara.  Mark  the  apologetic  agonies  of  Dean 
Farrar  and  other  orthodox  commentators  in  dealing 
with  this  passage.  Are  their  devices  less  injurious 
to  Christianity  than  the  belief  that  in  this  case  as 
in  many  others  there  has  gathered  about  the  adored 
head  a  halo  of  miracle;  miracle  in  this  case, 


150  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

like  the  character,  wholly  beneficent,  not  destruc- 
tive or  mere  display  of  power? 

As  to  dogma,  the  whole  structure  apparently 
rests  on  the  Mosaic  account  of  the  Creation  and 
of  the  Fall  of  Man.  Without  the  Fall  there  could 
have  been  no  room  for  the  Incarnation  and  the 
Atonement.  But  who,  in  the  face  of  the  discoveries 
of  science,  can  continue  to  believe  in  the  Mosaic 
account  of  Creation  and  the  Fall  of  Man? 

It  must  be  added  that  throughout  the  Bible, 
and  notably  in  the  Gospel  histories,  the  presenta- 
tion is  distinctly  geocentric.  To  those  writers  this 
earth  of  ours,  and  the  heaven  which  over-arched 
it  and  was  the  abode  of  Deity,  were  the  universe. 
This  earth  was  the  entire  scene  of  divine  action. 
Man  was  the  sole  object  of  divine  care.  Astron- 
omy has  now  taught  us  that  heaven  is  not  an 
arch  over  this  planet  and  that  there  are  more 
worlds  than  one. 

AUGUST,  1905, 


XXXII 

FREE  THOUGHT  AND  CHURCHMANSHIP 

THE  question  was  started  by  a  critic  the  other 
day  whether  a  Christian  of  my  way  of  thinking 
could  be  a  member  of  the  Anglican  Church. 
A  professor  of  the  Anglican  creed  he  could  not 
be,  though  he  might  sit  in  an  Anglican  pew.  But 
he  might  find  himself  in  other  respects  out  of 
place.  I  attend  a  church  where  I  am  safe  against 
religious  recognition  of  war.  Till  materialism 
has  thoroughly  proved  its  case,  a  man,  as  I  said 
before,  will  hardly  do  well,  as  it  seems  to  me,  in 
cutting  himself  off  from  religious  life. 

Extreme  materialism  lays  it  down  that  the  three 
great  obstacles  to  our  well-being  are  the  belief 
in  a  God,  the  belief  in  immortality,  and  the  belief 
in  the  freedom  of  the  will.  It  is  not  easy  to  see 
what  special  harm  pure  theism  has  done.  Its 
effects  might  be  thought  even  to  give  it  some 
claim  to  consideration  as  a  practical  key.  Im- 
mortality in  the  strict  sense  is  unthinkable,  and 


152  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

the  doctrine  has  been  presented  in  a  form  which 
shocks.  But  without  that  belief  in  account- 
ability which  is  the  support  of  conscience  the  world 
would  hardly  have  been  better  than  it  is. 

Nor  apparently  would  man  have  been  better 
braced  for  improving  effort  by  the  belief  that  he 
was  an  automaton  and  that  responsibility  was 
a  dream.  The  frank  abandonment  of  that  which 
reason,  our  only  guide,  as  Bishop  Butler  says, 
has  disproved  is  the  first  step  toward  the  attain- 
ment of  truth.  Free  thought  does  frankly  abandon, 
although  it  may  be  with  a  sigh,  whatever  science 
and  criticism  have  disproved.  It  admits  the 
difficulty  of  the  theistic  hypothesis  arising  from 
the  conflict  in  the  universe  of  that  which  seems 
to  us  disorder  and  evil  with  that  which  seems  to 
us  order  and  good.  It  lays  Paley's  " Evidences" 
and  the  Bridge  water  Treatises  on  the  shelf. 

But  reason  surely  bids  us  be  on  our  guard,  not 
only  against  the  influence  of  tradition  which  now, 
among  the  educated,  lingers  chiefly  in  clerical 
circles,  and  even  there  is  tempered  by  "Lux 
Mundi,"  but  against  the  rush  of  physical  dis- 
covery and  the  immediate  assumption  that  the 
germ-plasm  which  science,  overturning  our  infan- 


FREE  THOUGHT  AND  CHURCHMANSHIP  153 

tine  creeds,  has  shown  to  be  the  beginning  of 
human  life,  must  carry  in  it  the  limitation  of 
human  development,  aspiration,  and  hope. 

That  surely  is  a  critical  moment  in  the  history 
of  man  in  which  he  first  confronts  the  enigma 
of  the  universe  and  of  his  own  being  and  destiny 
with  reason  enlightened  by  science  and  unclouded 
by  tradition.  Single  thinkers  may  have  done  this 
before.  But  they  were  still  in  the  penumbra 
of  tradition  and  had  comparatively  little  of  the 
light  of  science.  Tradition  could  still  tender 
as  evidence  of  the  Noachic  deluge  the  finding  of 
fossil  shells  at  high  elevations,  and  philosophy 
could  reply  that  the  shells  were  cockles  dropped 
by  palmers  from  their  hats  in  crossing  the  moun- 
tains. 

Can  these  inquiries  be  deemed  profitless? 
Does  it  matter  nothing  to  a  man  whether  his 
death  may  be  change  in  being  or  annihilation? 
Does  it  matter  nothing  to  society  whether  the 
witness  of  conscience  is  true?  Dr.  Osier  makes 
light,  and  thinks  that  people  in  general  make 
light,  of  the  question  about  the  immortality 
of  the  soul.  Perhaps,  as  was  hinted  before,  the 
form  in  which  the  doctrine  was  presented,  repelling 


154  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

belief,  has  had  something  to  do  with  the  levity. 
However,  Dr.  Osier  is  happy  in  this  life.  So 
probably  it  would  be  found  are  most  of  his  Gal- 
lionian  compeers.  But  if  happiness  is  the  object, 
and  this  life  is  the  end,  what  balm  has  Dr.  Osier 
for  the  less  fortunate? 

"M.  C.  G."  arraigns  me  as  a  destroyer  of  the 
supernatural,  without  which  he  deems  we  should 
be  lost.  This  seems  to  imply  that  God  is  not 
in  nature.  But  the  theist  believes  that  God  is 
in  nature  and  is  manifested  through  it. 

SEPTEMBER,  1905. 


XXXIII 

RELIGION  AND  MORALITY 

A  CORRESPONDENT  of  the  Sun,  after  asking 
whether  religion  was  the  only  vehicle  by  which 
ethics  could  be  instilled  into  the  mind  of  a  child, 
went  on  in  effect,  if  I  understood  him  aright,  to 
discard  religion  as  a  basis  of  morality,  holding 
our  only  moral  standard  to  be  "the  will  and 
opinion  of  the  majority. "  The  religious  basis 
he  regards  as  a  figment  of  the  sacerdotal  caste. 
Some  religious  systems,  he  says,  have  been  lower- 
ing to  humanity;  which  is  unquestionably  true. 

To  fabricate  a  religion,  or  uphold  one  which 
had  been  proved  false,  as  a  foundation  for  morality 
would  plainly  be  worse  than  folly.  That  house 
would  be  built  on  something  weaker  than  sand. 
Let  us  all  lay  this  to  heart. 

The  will  and  opinion  of  the  majority  would 
furnish  a  rule  and  criterion  of  social  action  and, 
embodied  in  municipal  law,  would  regulate  the 
conduct  of  those  who  were  unable  to  defy  or  elude 


156  IN  QUEST   OF  LIGHT 

the  law.  Would  they  move  to  virtuous  effort, 
to  the  formation  of  a  high  character,  to  benevo- 
lence, to  self-sacrifice?  Take  the  whole  vocabu- 
lary of  moral  aspiration,  excellence,  and  beauty; 
translate  it  into  that  of  conformity  to  the  will  and 
opinion  of  the  majority,  and  a  great  deal  would 
surely  be  lost. 

Under  many  forms  and  names,  as  self-culture, 
benevolence,  self-devotion,  patriotism,  pure  love, 
even  as  poetry  and  sense  of  beauty,  something 
seems  to  be  at  work  in  the  universe  and  to  be 
approximately  asserting  itself,  which  is  not  the 
will  and  opinion  of  the  majority  or  mere  social 
expediency,  and  which  takes  the  forms  of  religions 
varying  in  their  character  and  dignity.  The  Greek 
pantheon  is  sensual.  The  State  religion  of  Greece 
is  irrational.  But  in  Greek  sentiment,  as  expressed 
in  history,  drama,  poetry,  even  apart  from  philos- 
ophy, you  find  that  which  seems  to  be  not  the  will 
and  opinion  of  the  majority  or  expediency  in  any 
form,  but  the  essential  spirit  of  religion. 

Even  in  our  respect  for  the  sanctity  of  human 
life  is  there  not  a  certain  religious  element? 
Could  it  exist  in  full  force  without  the  idea  of  a 
brotherhood  of  man,  which  seems  to  imply,  if  not 


RELIGION  AND   MORALITY  157 

a  distinct  belief  in  the  fatherhood  of  God,  some- 
thing beyond  mere  identity  of  species?  Is  not  a 
somewhat  diminished  sanctity  of  human  life 
already  showing  itself  as  a  concomitant  of  the 
decay  of  religion? 

One  correspondent  of  the  Sun  seems  to  sus- 
pect that  those  of  my  way  of  thinking  are  edging 
towards  mediaeval  faiths  which  have  faded  away. 
For  my  part  toward  nothing  mediaeval  am  I  con- 
scious of  edging.  Mediaeval  dogmatism  denounces 
me  as  an  atheist.  I  have  made  it  clear,  I  hope, 
that  I  presume  not  to  propound  any  theory  of  my 
own.  I  fully  share  the  doubts  and  perplexities  of 
the  time.  I  only  plead  for  three  things.  The 
first  is  a  recognition  of  the  vital  importance,  even 
on  social  grounds,  of  the  question  between  ex- 
treme materialism  and  faith  in  spiritual  life.  The 
second  is  fair  consideration  of  all  the  phenomena 
of  humanity  and  not  of  physiological  phenomena 
alone.  The  third  is  a  perfectly  free,  however 
cautious  and  reverent,  search  for  truth.  That 
there  is  at  present  " something  in  this  world  amiss" 
is  terribly  certain.  Faith  and  hope  quail  before 
the  proofs  of  it.  But  something  is  struggling  to 
" unriddle"  it,  and  it  seems  too  early  yet  to  succumb 


158  IN  QUEST  OF   LIGHT 

to  the  belief  that  we  are  only  a  very  superior 
class  of  the  beasts  that  perish,  some  of  us,  no  doubt, 
with  much  higher  pleasures,  but  all  of  us  with 
keener,  and  too  many  of  us  with  infinitely  keener, 
pains. 

OCTOBER,  1905. 


XXXIV 

THE  CONFERENCE  OF  THE  CHURCHES 

THIS  anxious  conference  of  the  Churches 
shows  that  they  believe  a  religious  crisis  to  be 
at  hand.  It  is  a  social  crisis  also.  Though 
the  ideas  of  God  and  a  future  state  may  not 
have  been  very  distinct  or  always  present,  who 
can  doubt  that  they,  with  conscience,  the  author- 
ity of  which  depends  upon  them,  have  had 
a  practical  influence;  that  they  have  reconciled 
people  in  general  to  the  dispensation  and  to 
the  terrible  inequalities  of  the  human  lot  ?  Social 
science  in  the  end  may  take  their  place.  But 
there  seems  not  unlikely  to  be  a  perilous  inter- 
regnum. Do  we  not  already  see  an  increase 
of  intensity  in  the  struggle  for  the  wealth  and 
pleasures  of  this  world? 

It  is  difficult  to  get  true  statistics  of  church- 
going,  still  more  difficult  to  learn  how  much  of  it 
is  religious,  how  much  is  social.  That  a  good  deal 

159 


160  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

of  it  is  social  appears  certain.  In  the  case  of  the 
State  Church  of  England  not  a  little  of  it  probably 
is  political.  I  think  I  have  even  known  churches 
to  be  built  or  restored  from  political  motives  by 
avowed  sceptics.  The  State  Church  is  torn  by 
parties  which  would  break  it  up  were  not  the 
ecclesiastical  polity  maintained  by  a  Parliament 
full  of  dissenters  and  unbelievers.  In  all  the 
Churches,  notably  in  those  of  which  the  clergy 
are  most  highly  educated,  there  are  searchings  of 
heart,  heresy  trials,  struggles  to  loosen  the  bonds 
of  the  old  creeds,  such  as  the  Westminster  Con- 
fession. Even  in  the  Anglican  Church  free  criti- 
cism of  the  Bible  has  been  gaining  ground  and 
High  Churchmen  write  such  books  as  "Lux 
Mundi."  Anglicans  are  struggling  to  get  rid  of 
the  Athanasian  Creed,  though  only  in  paradoxical 
and  denunciatory  form  does  it  differ  from  the 
other  creeds.  The  Mosaic  account  of  the  Creation 
and  the  Fall  of  Man  may  be  said  to  have  been 
generally  abandoned.  With  it  apparently  must  go 
the  dogmas  of  the  Atonement  and  the  Incarnation. 
We  are  not  at  liberty  to  rationalize  the  sacred  nar- 
rative and  substitute  for  that  which  science  has 
confuted  a  pure  invention  of  our  own.  On  what 


THE  CONFERENCE  OF  THE   CHURCHES  l6l 

grounds  then  could  the  Unitarians  be   excluded 
from  the  conference  of  the  Churches? 

Christianity  was  in  its  origin  a  moral,  not  a 
dogmatic  revelation.  In  its  great  manifesto,  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  there  is  not  a  word  of 
dogma.  Nor  is  there  anything  really  dogmatic  in 
the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul,  though  dogma  of  rather 
a  portentous  kind  has  been  distilled  from  them. 
Their  soul  is  passionate  love  of  the  character  of 
the  Founder,  with  fervid  faith  in  the  new  mo- 
rality. Dogma  makes  its  first  appearance  in  the 
Fourth  Gospel,  which  is  proved  by  other  signs 
to  be  the  work  not  of  a  Palestinian  but  of  an 
Alexandrian  Jew.  Now  comes  Hellenic  theosophy 
with  its  metaphysical  theories  about  the  nature  of 
Deity,  its  Logos,  its  Homo-ousians  and  Homoi- 
ousians,  its  Trinitarian  orthodoxies  and  Arian 
heresies,  its  Decrees  of  Ecclesiastical  Councils 
regulating  theological  fancies  and  making  pro- 
fession of  them  a  condition  of  Christian  member- 
ship as  well  as  a  test  of  Christian  faith.  Then, 
the  Church  having  become  the  thrall  of  the  State, 
and  that  State  being  the  Byzantine  despotism, 
orthodoxy  becomes  loyalty  and  heresy  becomes 
treason.  State  persecution  is  the  natural  result. 


1 62  IN  QUEST  OF   LIGHT 

Presently  we  have  Popes  instigating  the  Norman 
to  the  conquest  of  England  and  Ireland  in  the 
interest  of  the  faith.  Innocent  III.  exterminating 
the  Albigenses,  the  Inquisition  with  its  autos-da-fe, 
religious  wars,  Jesuitism,  the  St.  Bartholomew, 
the  revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  and  the 
Dragonades  follow  in  due  course. 

The  Reformation,  where  it  prevailed,  got  rid  of 
Papal  despotism,  of  sacerdotalism,  of  asceticism, 
of  thaumaturgy,  of  saint  worship,  and  presently  of 
persecution.  But  it  did  not  get  rid  of  dogma.  It 
rather  fell  back  on  dogma  as  a  pledge  of  stability 
and  security  in  place  of  the  authority  of  the  Church. 
It  kept  religious  belief  subject  to  political  authority. 
That  principle  is  professed  in  one  case  and  more 
or  less  practised  in  all.  The  political  influences 
of  that  hour  are  not  very  strong  warrants  for  ever- 
lasting and  universal  truth. 

Mutual  toleration  and  charity  there  may  at  once 
be  to  any  extent,  and  they  are  invaluable.  Of 
reunion  there  seems  to  be  little  hope  otherwise 
than  by  going  back  from  Alexandria,  Nice,  Con- 
stantinople, Rome,  Geneva,  Augsburg,  Zurich,  and 
Canterbury,  to  the  hillside  in  Galilee  and  the  moral 
revelation  proclaimed  there.  But  at  all  events 


THE  CONFERENCE  OF  THE  CHURCHES  163 

tests  may  at  once  be  relaxed,  and  those  who  are 
elected  and  have  been  equipped  to  act  as  our 
spiritual  guides  may  be  set  at  liberty  to  speak  the 
truth. 

DECEMBER,  1905. 


XXXV 

WHAT  DO  WE  OWE  TO  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT? 

KIND  "Orthodoxy,"  taking  pity  on  one  gone 
astray,  sends  him  a  passage  from  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, striking  enough,  as  "Orthodoxy"  thinks,  to 
have  the  effect  upon  him  of  a  miraculous  resur- 
rection from  the  dead. 

Of  the  changes  that  I  have  seen  in  a  long  life 
not  one  is  more  momentous  than  the  change  in 
the  position  of  the  Bible.  As  the  collection  of  a 
national  literature,  intensely  interesting  and  some- 
times spiritually  grand,  the  Old  Testament  will 
live  forever.  As  a  supposed  course  of  divine  reve- 
lation it  has  yielded  to  critical  inquiry.  The 
reputed  authorship  of  much  of  it  has  been  dis- 
proved, and  it  has  been  shown  to  be  a  human 
mixture  not  only  of  that  which  is  sublime  with  that 
which  is  the  reverse  of  sublime,  but  of  good  with 
evil.  Vain,  surely,  is  the  attempt  to  restore  its 
unity  and  divinity  by  any  application  to  its  ethics 
of  the  Darwinian  theory  of  evolution.  Would 

164 


WHAT  DO  WE  OWE  TO  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT?      165 

Deity  in  revealing  itself  to  man  stoop  to  personate 
the  primitive  delusions  of  the  human  mind  and 
the  lower  stages  of  human  morality?  In  what, 
after  all,  does  the  supposed  evolution  end?  In 
persistent  tribalism,  in  Pharisaism,  in  the  crucifix- 
ion of  the  Great  Teacher  of  Humanity,  in  the 
narrow  ceremonialism  of  the  Talmud. 

It  might  be  difficult  to  say  what  on  the  whole 
the  effect  of  belief  in  the  inspiration  of  the  Old 
Testament  on  character  and  progress  has  been. 
The  opening  of  Genesis  is  sublime,  as  Longinus 
felt.  It  seems,  compared  with  what  follows,  the 
work  of  a  superior  mind.  But  devout  belief  in  it 
has  barred,  nearly  down  to  our  own  day,  rational 
inquiry  into  the  history  of  the  planet  and  the 
origin  of  man.  Two  generations  ago  scientific 
lecturers  might  be  heard  pitiably  struggling  to 
force  science  into  conformity  with  faith.  Then, 
from  the  grand  "Let  there  be  light !"  we  drop  to 
the  God  who  makes  man  of  dust,  woman  of  man's 
rib,  and  manufactures  coats  of  skin  for  them.  We 
have  God  walking  in  the  garden  in  the  cool  of  the 
evening.  We  have  the  Tree  of  Knowledge  and 
the  talking  Serpent.  The  patriarchs  living  nine 
centuries,  the  giants,  the  Deluge  with  its  infantine 


1 66  IN   QUEST  OF   LIGHT 

delusions  and  impossibilities,  the  loves  of  the 
angels,  and  the  Tower  of  Babel,  are  all  on  the 
level  of  the  commonest  mythologies.  Yet  they 
have  clouded  the  mind  of  the  most  advanced 
members  of  the  race. 

In  the  higher  passages  of  the  Prophets  such  as 
that  cited  by  my  orthodox  well-wisher,  we  have 
grand  manifestoes  of  faith  in  the  God 'of  righteous- 
ness, though  we  hardly  find  aspirations  after 
spiritual  self-culture,  or,  saving  perhaps  in  pas- 
sages of  the  Psalms,  anything  like  the  tenderness 
of  Christian  ethics.  There  are  glimpses,  though 
only  glimpses,  of  a  universal  religion.  There  is 
no  glimpse  anywhere  of  a  life  beyond  the  present, 
though  there  are  allusions  to  a  shadowy  world  of 
the  dead.  We  have  in  the  book  of  Job  a  deeply 
interesting  effort  to  solve  a  mystery  of  the  moral 
world,  albeit  with  an  abortive  conclusion.  We 
have  the  beauty  of  pastoral  life  and  character  in 
the  book  of  Ruth;  we  have  chivalrous  affection 
in  the  friendship  of  David  and  Jonathan.  In  the 
Mosaic  law,  compared  with  the  codes  of  the  most 
civilized  nations  of  antiquity,  notable  advances 
may  be  traced. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  have  the  picture  of  a 


WHAT  DO   WE   OWE  TO  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT?     l6/ 

Deity  covenanting  to  advance  the  interests  of  one 
tribe  above  those  of  the  rest  of  mankind  on  the 
condition  of  the  performance  of  a  tribal  rite,  and 
thus  stamping  tribalism  as  perpetual.  We  have 
a  Deity  prospering  the  craft  of  Jacob,  hardening 
the  heart  of  Pharaoh  so  that  he  will  not  let  Israel 
go,  and  then  slaying  all  the  guiltless  firstborn  of 
the  Egyptians;  sanctioning  predatory  invasion  of 
Canaan  and  extermination  of  its  people;  making 
the  sun  to  stand  still  in  heaven  that  the  slaughter 
may  be  complete ;  approving  the  treason  of  Rahab, 
the  murder  of  Sisera,  and  the  hewing  of  Agag  in 
pieces ;  chronicling  without  condemnation  David's 
putting  to  a  death  of  torture  the  people  of  a 
captured  city ;  prompting  the  butchery  of  all  the 
prophets  of  Baal ;  sending  forth  a  lying  spirit  to 
betray  King  Ahab  to  his  ruin ;  causing  forty  chil- 
dren, for  mocking  a  prophet,  to  be  torn  to  pieces 
by  bears.  It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  these 
presentations  of  Deity  and  the  divine  government 
have  had  their  effect  on  the  character  of  men,  that 
they  are  partly  responsible  for  the  darker  features 
of  Puritanism  and  for  the  use  of  persecuting  force 
in  the  supposed  interest  of  religion. 

"Thou  shalt  not  suffer  a  witch  to  live."    What 


1 68  IN   QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

crimes  and  horrors  followed  in  the  train  of  the 
dark  superstition  which  had  its  fancied  warrant  in 
those  words! 

The  idea  of  a  Chosen  People  still  lingers  and 
leads  to  aberrations.  Perhaps  the  tribalism  of 
which  it  is  the  Hebrew  version  may  not  have  been 
without  its  effect  in  maintaining  too  sharp  a  dis- 
tinction between  Christendom  and  the  rest  of 
humanity. 

It  may  be  difficult  to  strike  the  balance.  What 
is  certain  is  that  free  inquiry  has  at  length  pre- 
vailed over  tradition  and  empowered  us  to  choose 
the  good,  of  which  there  is  rich  store,  such  as  the 
passage  tendered  for  my  conversion,  in  the  Old 
Testament,  and  eschew  the  evil. 

What  is  the  relation  of  the  Old  Testament  to 
the  New  ?  The  Sanhedrim,  for  its  part,  gave  that 
question  a  decisive  answer.  Devotees  of  Judaism 
have  spoken  of  Christianity  as  its  supplement. 
The  relation  is  difficult  to  define,  but  to  the  pupil 
of  Gamaliel  the  religion  of  Jesus  was  evidently  a 
new  dawn  and  a  new  life.  We  have  Judaism  still 
before  us  perpetuating  its  lingering  tribalism  by 
the  tribal  rite;  refusing  to  blend  with  the  races 
among  which  it  dwells ;  to  intermarry  with  them ; 


WHAT  DO  WE  OWE  TO  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  ?    169 

to  break  bread,  if  it  can  help,  with  them ;  treating 
that  which  is  unclean  for  itself  as  clean  for  them ; 
celebrating  the  feast  of  Purim  in  memory  of  its 
ancient  feud.  I  speak,  of  course,  of  the  strict 
and  Talmudic  Jew  as  he  is  found  in  Russia  or 
Poland,  not  of  those  whom  the  Sun  describes  as 
having  undergone  American  influence  and  be- 
come practically  citizens  of  the  American  republic, 
or  rather  perhaps  of  the  world,  and  not  Tal- 
mudists,  but  simply  theists. 

DECEMBER,  1905. 


XXXVI 

JUSTICE  HEREAFTER 

OF  Professor  Osier's  "Counsels  and  Ideals," 
which  came  into  my  hands  the  other  day,  the  bulk 
is  professional.  But  at  the  end  are  some  pages 
on  religion,  death,  and  immortality.  The  illus- 
trious professor  rather  affects  the  peculiar  style 
which  fascinates  us  in  the  writings  of  the  doubting 
philosopher,  Sir  Thomas  Browne.  Yet  his  senti- 
ments can  hardly  be  mistaken.  "As  a  rule,  man 
dies  as  he  had  lived,  uninfluenced  practically  by 
the  thought  of  a  future  life."  "The  Preacher  was 
right:  in  this  matter  man  hath  no  preeminence 
over  the  beast.  '  As  one  dieth,  so  dieth  the  other.' " 
In  these  sentences  we  have  the  keynote.  At  death, 
then,  it  matters  nothing  whether  a  man  has  been 
the  benefactor  or  the  scourge  of  his  kind,  the  best 
of  citizens  or  the  worst  of  malefactors,  the  most 
self-denying  of  philanthropists  or  the  grossest  of 
voluptuaries ;  nor  for  the  myriads  who  by  no  fault 
of  their  own  have  suffered  and  perhaps  suffered 
patiently  in  this  life  is  there  any  hope  of  compen- 

170 


JUSTICE  HEREAFTER  171 

sation  hereafter.  This  is  a  doctrine  which,  like 
other  doctrines,  if  it  is  proved  must  be  accepted,  but 
of  which  we  should  naturally  wish  to  see  the  proof. 
The  unhappy  and  the  oppressed  assuredly  will.  So 
will  those  who  are  losing  the  objects  of  their  love. 
If  the  opposite  belief  depended  on  stories  of 
death-bed  visions  or  on  the  emotions  of  the  dying, 
the  task  of  the  sceptic  would  be  easy.  But  to 
rest  the  case  on  the  attitude  at  death  is  surely 
to  look  in  a  wrong  quarter.  It  is  in  the  liv- 
ing and  healthy  conscience  that  the  intimation, 
not  of  immortality,  which,  strictly  speaking,  is 
inconceivable  and  therefore  undemonstrable,  but 
of  a  future  existence,  is  to  be  sought.  Conscience 
appears,  in  all  in  whom  it  has  not  been  seared  and 
silenced,  to  speak  of  a  supreme  justice,  the  awards 
of  which  are  not  limited  to  this  world  and  which 
is  not  to  be  baffled,  as  in  numberless  cases  earthly 
justice  is,  by  the  power  or  arts  of  the  evildoer. 
That  this  idea  is  not  constantly  and  distinctly 
present  to  the  minds  of  men  is  no  conclusive 
proof  of  its  falsehood.  If  it  is  not  constantly  and 
distinctly  present  as  the  expectation  of  another 
life,  it  is  present  as  the  voice  of  morality  in  con- 
flict with  temptation. 


IN   QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

Professor  Osier's  point  of  view,  if  I  read  him 
aright,  seems  to  be  that  of  a  thoroughgoing 
evolutionist.  Like  other  thoroughgoing  evolu- 
tionists, he  seems  to  assume  that  life  is  self-gen- 
erated in  the  germ-plasm.  But  self-generation  is 
inconceivable.  There  must  have  been  something 
to  indue  that  particle  with  generative  force.  Ex- 
treme evolutionists  seem  also  to  assume  that  con- 
tinuity of  development  precludes  essential  change. 
"The  individual,"  says  Dr.  Osier,  "is  nothing 
more  than  the  transient  offshoot  of  a  germ-plasm, 
which  has  an  unbroken  continuity  from  generation 
to  generation,  from  age  to  age."  But  if  there  is 
not  essential  change  from  the  germ-plasm  to 
Newton  or  to  the  highest  example  of  spiritual 
aspiration,  what  change  is  essential?  The  un- 
folding may  not  be  entirely  from  within.  It  may 
be  due  to  influence  from  without.  Once  more, 
the  evidence  of  our  bodily  senses  may  not  be  an 
exhaustive  revelation  of  the  universe.  At  all 
events,  it  seems  difficult  to  maintain  that  continuity 
of  development  precludes  essential  change,  or  that 
an  ascending  series  of  states  commencing  in  the 
germ-plasm  might  not  culminate  in  spiritual  life. 

JANUARY,  1906. 


XXXVII 

OUR  PRESENT  POSITION 

No  candid  reader,  I  hope,  can  have  supposed 
that  these  letters  were  penned  by  an  enemy  to 
religion,  though  they  may  have  frankly  admitted 
the  difficulties  of  belief.  Their  writer  was  moved 
by  the  gravity  of  the  crisis,  social  as  well  as  politi- 
cal, so  great  a  part  having  been  socially  played  by 
religion.  He  has  been  attempting  to  define  the 
position,  drawing  the  line  between  that  which 
must  be  abandoned  and  that  which  is  left,  trying 
to  guard  against  the  proclivities  of  the  hour  and 
pleading  for  perfect  freedom  of  inquiry,  especially 
on  behalf  of  the  clergy,  an  order  set  apart  and 
specially  qualified  for  spiritual  work. 

There  has  been  no  more  attack  in  these  letters 
upon  any  particular  religion  than  upon  religion  in 
general.  Nothing  of  that  kind  could  have  been 
offered  to  the  Sun. 

Thus  we  stand.  From  highly  educated  and 
perfectly  open  minds  the  belief  in  the  Bible  as  an 

173 


174  IN  QUEST  OF  LIGHT 

inspired  volume  on  which  the  Christian  world  had 
been  resting  seems  to  have  departed.  We  are  left 
with  the  collected  body  of  Hebrew  literature,  pro- 
foundly interesting,  profoundly  important,  forming 
on  the  whole  an  upward  step  in  the  movement  of 
humanity,  but  varying  with  the  different  authorships 
in  elevation  as  well  as  in  literary  character,  and 
marred  in  parts  by  tribalism  and  by  the  primitive 
morality  of  early  times  which,  being  taken  for  the 
divine  morality,  has  wrought  much  evil. 

Few  now  deny  that  Genesis  is  mythical.  The 
dogmatic  part  of  Christianity  must  apparently 
share  its  fate.  If  there  was  no  Fall  of  Man,  there 
could  be  no  occasion  for  an  Atonement,  no  room 
for  an  Incarnation.  The  sophistication  of  the 
myth  in  Genesis  to  which  apologists  rescrt  is 
surely  hopeless.  The  evidence  of  the  Gospel 
miracles,  and  notably  of  the  Resurrection,  has 
given  way  under  critical  examination.  But  there 
still  remain  to  us  the  character  of  Jesus  and  his 
teachings,  with  the  record  of  the  effect  of  those 
teachings,  so  far  as  they  have  been  allowed  fair 
play,  on  human  character  and  progress.  The 
barrier  between  Christendom  and  Heathendom  is 
falling.  The  liberal  theism  of  the  Christian  begins 


OUR  PRESENT  POSITION  175 

to  join   hands   with   the   liberal   theism    of    the 
Hindu. 

On  the  optimist  theism  of  Leibnitz  or  the  Bridge- 
water  Treatises  we  can  rest  no  more.  Science 
has  revealed  much  in  the  heavens  as  well  as  on 
earth,  and  forced  us  to  see  on  earth  many  things, 
such  as  the  ruthless  waste  of  animal  life,  to  which 
we  had  before  shut  our  eyes.  Evidently,  if  in  the 
government  of  the  universe  perfect  benevolence 
and  justice  are  combined  with  omnipotence,  the 
benevolence  must  be  in  the  ultimate  design.  A 
hint  of  that  kind  our  own  consciousness  may  supply 
in  our  feeling  that  effort  is  essential  to  moral  per- 
fection. The  movement,  in  the  case  of  humanity 
at  least,  is  on  the  whole  upward  and  onward; 
while  through  the  nobler  part  of  our  nature,  with 
its  pure  affections,  its  poetry  and  tenderness,  and 
even  through  the  beauty  of  the  earth  and  the  glory 
of  the  starry  skies,  a  spirit  seems  to  commune  and 
sympathize  with  ours.  Metaphysical  arguments 
will  not  hold.  That  a  thing  cannot  be  conceived 
by  us  may  be  a  proof  only  of  our  mental  limitations. 
But  certainly  nothing  can  to  us  be  more  incon- 
ceivable than  the  generation  of  mind  and  spirit 
from  matter.  "No  man  hath  seen  God  at  any 


1/6  IN  QUEST  OF   LIGHT 

time."  Such,  apart  from  the  intimations  of 
conscience,  appears  to  be  the  sum  of  our  present 
knowledge  respecting  the  Power  which  rules  the 
universe.  From  the  uniformity  of  natural  law 
we  infer  the  unity  of  its  author.  Hypotheses  non 
fin  go  was  the  motto  of  Newton,  which  in  this 
matter  it  will  be  specially  well  for  us  to  observe. 
The  belief  seems  to  be  gaining  ground  that  life 
beyond  the  grave  is  a  fond  illusion,  at  best  a  pla- 
tonic  speculation;  that  man  at  the  last  lies  down 
and  dies  like  the  dog;  that  death  consequently 
cancels  all  moral  distinctions  and  levels  the  great- 
est benefactor  with  the  worst  enemy  of  his  kind. 
The  old  arguments  in  favor  of  the  doctrine  of 
immortality,  derived  from  the  separate  existence 
and  indiscerptibility  of  the  soul,  such  as  were  used 
by  Bishop  Butler,  physiology,  it  must  be  owned, 
has  swept  away.  There  remains  to  us  the  testi- 
mony of  conscience,  telling  us  that  as  we  do  well 
or  ill  in  this  life  it  will  be  well  or  ill  for  us  in  the 
end.  No  more,  in  fact,  was  told  us  by  the  Founder 
of  Christendom,  whose  words  concerning  a  future 
state,  notably  the  story  of  Dives  and  Lazarus, 
are  homily  and  imagery,  not  revelation.  But  the 
voice  of  conscience  has  not  yet  been  explained 


OUR  PRESENT   POSITION  177 

away.  From  the  fear  of  the  Dantean  hell,  and 
the  hideous  idea  of  God  as  an  eternal  torturer, 
which  it  involves,  the  world  has  been  set  free. 

It  seems  premature  to  assume  that  the  visible 
beginning  of  life  is  its  origin,  or  that  the  material 
character  of  the  germ  necessarily  limits  the  devel- 
opment and  bars  a  spiritual  outcome  as  the  end. 
Always  we  have  to  remember  that  our  knowledge 
is  bounded  by  our  senses,  and  that  we  may  be  in 
a  world  quite  other  than  that  which  sense  reveals. 

In  the  ministries  of  the  different  churches  are 
a  number  of  men,  dedicated  to  a  spiritual  calling, 
whose  character  and  learning,  if  they  were  free, 
might  be  very  helpful.  But  they  are  in  bondage 
to  tests  under  which  many  of  them  writhe,  resort- 
ing to  shifts  of  interpretation  whereby  they  do 
more  harm  than  good.  It  is  surely  in  the  interest 
of  all  who  desire  the  truth  that  clerical  thought 
and  speech  should  be  set  free. 

Such  in  general  outline  appears  to  be  our  pres- 
ent position.  There  is  no  use  in  paltering  with 
its  facts  or  concealing  its  difficulties.  Nor  is 
there  any  way  of  salvation  for  us  but  unwavering 
and  untrammelled  pursuit  of  truth. 

FEBRUARY,  1906. 


WORKS  BY  PROFESSOR  GOLDWIN   SMITH. 


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